MapPoint: How to Create a High Contrast Shaded Area Map (249714)

SUMMARY

If you want to highlight an area on a map, such as a county or a state, in Microsoft MapPoint, you can highlight the area by creating a high contrast Shaded Area Map. By sharply contrasting the shading values between two areas, you can effectually highlight one of those areas.

By default, the unmapped area on a MapPoint map is displayed with a gray shading. This gray shading may not provide enough contrast to the area that you want to highlight if the only area that you map is the area that you want to highlight.

To work around this issue, map both the "unmapped" area (the area immediately surrounding the area that you want to highlight) with a zero shading value and the area that you want to highlight with a maximum shading value to create maximum contrast between the two areas.

For example, to highlight Bristol County, Rhode Island:

1. Start Microsoft Excel.
2. Type the following data in Sheet 1 of the Excel spreadsheet:
   
   

   County	State	Shading Value
   Bristol	Rhode Island	8
   Kent	Rhode Island	0
   Newport	Rhode Island	0
   Providence	Rhode Island	0
   Washington	Rhode Island	0
   Bristol	Massachusetts	0

3. On the File menu, click Save As.
4. In the Save in box, browse to the folder in which you want to save the Excel spreadsheet.
5. In the File name box, type Bristol RI map, and then click Save.
6. Quit Excel.
7. Start MapPoint.
8. On the File menu, click Import Data.
9. In the Look in box, browse to the folder in which you saved the Excel spreadsheet.
10. Click to select the Bristol RI map file, and then click Open.
11. In the Data Import Wizard, click Sheet 1, click Next, and then click Finish.
12. Click Shaded Area Map, and then click Next.
13. Under Show the data by, click the County option, and then click Next.
14. Under Colors, click the down arrow to select the color shading scheme that you want, and then click Finish.