Print composer

With print composer, map designing becomes easy and intuitive, as it allows you to set up a layout and add a map and its necessary elements, such as text labels, the legend, the scale bar, and the north arrow. Moreover, you can significantly enliven your map by combining multiple overviews, images, drawings, and HTML labels. To simplify map generation and save your time, you can use map templates and the atlas generator functionality.

To enter print composer mode, go to Project | New Print Composer from the menu, click on the button on the File toolbar, or just use the Ctrl + P keyboard shortcut. In the Composer title dialog window, you will be asked to give a title to your map. Click on the OK button for the title to be generated automatically (Composer 1, Composer 2, Composer 3, and so on; you will be able to rename them later if you want).

In the upper row of the print composer window, there are drop-down menus that provide access to its options and functionality. The upper row of toolbars provides quick-access buttons for the same functionality. Note that the Composer Items toolbar is, by default, placed separately on the left side of the window because it provides quick access to all elements that are usually necessary to constitute a map, for example, a map canvas, a legend, a scale bar, labels, annotations, and so on. In the central part of the window, you can see an empty page that represents the composer canvas available for item arrangement, as shown here:

In the right part of the print composer window, there are two panels with tabs. The upper panel holds the following tabs:

• Items: This displays the list of map items added to the map. It allows you to define their visibility, rename, reorder, and lock them for changes.
• Command history: This displays the list of commands used. With the history, you can easily roll back changes and have better control over the process of map generation.

The lower panel holds three tabs, as follows:

• Composition: This is responsible for Paper and quality (page size, number, and resolution) and Guides and Grid (spacing and snapping tolerance) so as to simplify map item placement.
• Item properties: This is a dynamic tab whose contents changes automatically, depending on the map item currently selected.
• Atlas generation: Once the Generate an atlas toggle is active, you can set and modify its parameters.

  Note

  Note that it is only the default panels' placement that can be rearranged. In order to change the panel/tab position, hover your mouse arrow over its perforated area, which looks like this:

  

  Now, drag and drop it at another place. You can also close any unnecessary panel by clicking on the button in its top-right corner. Also, panels can be turned on or off with the toggles that become available after right-clicking on the menu or the toolbar's panel, that is, when you see something like this:

  

You can get additional control over composer settings from its Composer Options menu, which can be found under Settings. For example, you might want to change the Default font that will be used for the legend and text labels. For further work in the Grid appearance section, we set Grid style to Solid and leave Grid and guide defaults unchanged, as we will configure them later.