Ortelius Macintosh Map Making Software by Mapdiva, LLC

Ortelius is packed with hundreds of styles and symbols. Now it’s easier than ever to make fine adjustments to symbol sizes on your map. Here’s how…

Manually Scale Symbol

Individual symbols can be resized, or scaled, directly by grabbing the lower-right sizing handle on the symbol and dragging inward or outward.

Note, symbols in the Library are “master symbols.” When you place a symbol on your map with the Symbol Stamp tool, you place a copy, or instance, of the master on your map. When you make changes to that instance, such as changing the scale of a symbol, the master symbol is unaffected by the change.

Select one or more symbol and adjust the scale factor from the Object Inspector – Features pane. Scale can be adjusted via the slider bar or by entering a percent scale factor. As of Ortelius release 1.0.6, multiple symbols can be scale at one time. It’s that easy!

On occasion, mappers may work with a symbol set that is based on exacting symbol specifications. For example, symbols for the International Specification for Orienteering Maps are sized according to exact specifications for viewing at a particular scale (1:15,000). Their specification allows symbols to be rendered at 150% for viewing on 1:10,000 maps. Ortelius makes it easy to pre-scale all map symbols to before they are even placed on your map. Choose File > Drawing Setup in the main menu to set the pre-scale factor. Note, under most circumstances this setting should remain at the default 100%.