Print Composer¶

Open a new Print Composer Template¶

Before you start to work with the Print Composer, you need to load some raster and vector layers in the QGIS map canvas and adapt their properties to suit your own convenience. After everything is rendered and symbolized to your liking, click the ^{New Print Composer} icon in the toolbar or choose File ‣ New Print Composer. You will be prompted to choose a title for the new Composer.

Using Print Composer¶

Opening the Print Composer provides you with a blank canvas to which you can add the current QGIS map canvas, text labels, images, legends, scale bars, basic shapes, arrows, attribute tables and HTML frames. Figure_composer_1 shows the initial view of the Print Composer before any elements are added.

Figure Composer 1:

Print Composer

The Print Composer provides four tabs:

• The Composition tab allows you to set paper size, orientation, the page background, number of pages and print quality for the output file in dpi. Furthermore, you can also activate the Print as raster checkbox. This means all elements will be rastered before printing or saving as PostScript or PDF. In this tab, you can also customize settings for grid and smart guides.
• The Item Properties tab displays the properties for the selected item element. Click the ^{Select/Move item} icon to select an element (e.g., legend, scale bar or label) on the canvas. Then click the Item Properties tab and customize the settings for the selected element.
• The Command history tab (hidden by default) displays a history of all changes applied to the Print Composer layout. With a mouse click, it is possible to undo and redo layout steps back and forth to a certain status.
• The Atlas generation tab allows you to enable the generation of an atlas for the current Composer and gives access to its parameters.

In the bottom part of the Print Composer window, you can find a status bar with mouse position, current page number and a combo box to set the zoom level.

You can add multiple elements to the Composer. It is also possible to have more than one map view or legend or scale bar in the Print Composer canvas, on one or several pages. Each element has its own properties and, in the case of the map, its own extent. If you want to remove any elements from the Composer canvas you can do that with the Delete or the Backspace key.

Print Composer Options¶

From Settings ‣ Composer Options you can set some options that will be used as default during your work.

• Compositions defaults let you specify the default font to use.
• With Grid appearance, you can set the grid style and its color.
• Grid defaults defines spacing, offset and tolerance of the grid. There are three types of grid: Dots, Solid lines and Crosses.
• Guide defaults defines the tolerance for the guides.

Composition tab — General composition setup¶

In the Composition tab, you can define the global settings of your composition.

• You can choose one of the Presets for your paper sheet, or enter your custom width and height.
• Composition can now be divided into several pages. For instance, a first page can show a map canvas, and a second page can show the attribute table associated with a layer, while a third one shows an HTML frame linking to your organization website. Set the Number of pages to the desired value. You can choose the page Orientation and its Exported resolution. When checked, print as raster means all elements will be rasterized before printing or saving as PostScript or PDF.
• Grid lets you customize grid settings like spacings, offsets and tolerance to your need.
• In Snap to alignments, you can change the Tolerance, which is the maximum distance below which an item is snapped to smart guides.

Snap to grid and/or to smart guides can be enabled from the View menu. In this menu, you can also hide or show the grid and smart guides.

Composer items general options¶

Composer items have a set of common properties you will find on the bottom of the Item Properties tab: Position and size, Frame, Background, Item ID and Rendering (See figure_composer_2).

Figure Composer 2:

Common Item properties Dialogs

• The Position and size dialog lets you define size and position of the frame that contains the item. You can also choose which Reference point will be set at the X and Y coordinates previously defined.
• The Rotation sets the rotation of the element (in degrees).
• The Frame shows or hides the frame around the label. Click on the [Color] and [Thickness] buttons to adjust those properties.
• The Background enables or disables a background color. Click on the [Color...] button to display a dialog where you can pick a color or choose from a custom setting. Transparency can also be adjusted throught the alpha field.
• Use the Item ID to create a relationship to other Print Composer items. This is used with QGIS server and any potential web client. You can set an ID on an item (e.g., a map and a label), and then the web client can send data to set a property (e.g., label text) for that specific item. The GetProjectSettings command will list what items and which IDs are available in a layout.
• Rendering mode can be selected in the option field. See Rendering_Mode.

Adding a current QGIS map canvas to the Print Composer¶

Click on the ^{Add new map} toolbar button in the Print Composer toolbar to add the QGIS map canvas. Now, drag a rectangle onto the Composer canvas with the left mouse button to add the map. To display the current map, you can choose between three different modes in the map Item Properties tab:

• Rectangle is the default setting. It only displays an empty box with a message ‘Map will be printed here’.
• Cache renders the map in the current screen resolution. If you zoom the Composer window in or out, the map is not rendered again but the image will be scaled.
• Render means that if you zoom the Composer window in or out, the map will be rendered again, but for space reasons, only up to a maximum resolution.

Cache is the default preview mode for newly added Print Composer maps.

You can resize the map element by clicking on the ^{Select/Move item} button, selecting the element, and dragging one of the blue handles in the corner of the map. With the map selected, you can now adapt more properties in the map Item Properties tab.

To move layers within the map element, select the map element, click the ^{Move item content} icon and move the layers within the map element frame with the left mouse button. After you have found the right place for an element, you can lock the element position within the Print Composer canvas. Select the map element and click on the right mouse button to ^Lock the element position and again to unlock the element. You can also lock the map element by activating the Lock layers for map item checkbox in the Map dialog of the Item Properties tab.

Main properties¶

The Main properties dialog of the map Item Properies tab provides the following functionalities (see figure_composer_4):

Figure Composer 4:

Map Item properties Tab

• The Preview area allows you to define the preview modes ‘Rectangle’, ‘Cache’ and ‘Render’, as described above. If you change the view on the QGIS map canvas by changing vector or raster properties, you can update the Print Composer view by selecting the map element in the Print Composer and clicking the [Update preview] button.
• The field Scale sets a manual scale.
• The field Rotation allows you to rotate the map element content clockwise in degrees. Note that a coordinate frame can only be added with the default value 0.
• Draw map canvas items lets you show annotations that may be placed on the map canvas in the main QGIS window.
• You can choose to lock the layers shown on a map item. Check Lock layers for map item. After this is checked, any layer that would be displayed or hidden in the main QGIS window won’t appear or be hidden in the map item of the Composer. But style and labels of a locked layer are still refreshed according to the main QGIS interface.

Extents¶

The Extents dialog of the map item tab provides the following functionalities (see figure_composer_5):

Figure Composer 5:

Map Extents Dialog

• The Map extent area allows you to specify the map extent using Y and X min/max values or by clicking the [Set to map canvas extent] button.

If you change the view on the QGIS map canvas by changing vector or raster properties, you can update the Print Composer view by selecting the map element in the Print Composer and clicking the [Update preview] button in the map Item Properties tab (see figure_composer_2).

Grid¶

The Grid dialog of the map Item Properties tab provides the following functionalities (see Figure_composer_6):

Figure Composer 6:

Map Grid Dialog

• The Show grid checkbox allows you to overlay a grid onto the map element. As grid type, you can specify to use a solid line or cross. Symbology of the grid can be chosen. See section Rendering_Mode. Furthermore, you can define an interval in the X and Y directions, an X and Y offset, and the width used for the cross or line grid type.
• You can choose to paint the frame with a zebra style. If not selected, the general frame option is used (see section Frame_dialog). Advanced rendering mode is also available for grids (see section Rendering_mode).
• The Draw coordinates checkbox allows you to add coordinates to the map frame. The annotation can be drawn inside or outside the map frame. The annotation direction can be defined as horizontal, vertical, horizontal and vertical, or boundary direction, for each border individually. Units can be in meters or in degrees. Finally, you can define the grid color, the annotation font, the annotation distance from the map frame and the precision of the drawn coordinates.

Overview¶

The Overview dialog of the map Item Properties tab provides the following functionalities (see Figure_composer_7):

Figure Composer 7:

Map Overview Dialog

If the Composer has more than one map, you can choose to use a first map to show the extents of a second map. The Overview dialog of the map Item Properties tab allows you to customize the appearance of that feature.

• The Overview frame combo list references the map item whose extents will be drawn on the present map item.
• The Overview Style allows you to change the frame color. See section vector_style_manager .
• The Overview Blend mode allows you to set different transparency blend modes, to enhance visibility of the frame. See Rendering_Mode.
• If checked, Invert overview creates a mask around the extents: the referenced map extents are shown clearly, whereas everything else is blended with the frame color.

Adding a Label item to the Print Composer¶

To add a label, click the ^{Add label} icon, place the element with the left mouse button on the Print Composer canvas and position and customize its appearance in the label Item Properties tab.

The Item Properties tab of a label item provides the following functionalities:

Figure Composer 8:

Label Item properties Tab

Main properties¶

The Main properties dialog of the label Item Properties tab provides the following functionalities (see Figure_composer_9):

Figure Composer 9:

Label Main properties Dialog

• The main properties dialog is where the text (HTML or not) or the expression needed to fill the label is added to the Composer canvas.
• Labels can be interpreted as HTML code: check Render as HTML. You can now insert a URL, a clickable image that links to a web page or something more complex.
• You can also insert an expression. Click on [Insert an expression] to open a new dialog. Build an expression by clicking the functions available in the left side of the panel. On the right side of the Insert an expression dialog, the help file associated with the function selected is displayed. Two special categories can be useful, particularly associated with the atlas functionality: geometry functions and records functions. At the bottom, a preview of the expression is shown.
• Define font and font color by clicking on the [Font] and [Font color...] buttons.

Alignment and Display¶

The Alignment and Display dialogs of the label Item Properties tab provide the following functionalities (see Figure_composer_10):

Figure Composer 10:

Label Alignment and Display Dialogs

• You can define the horizontal and vertical alignment in the Alignment zone.
• In the Display tag, you can define a margin in mm and/or a rotation angle in degrees for the text.

Adding an Image item to the Print Composer¶

To add an image, click the ^{Add image} icon, place the element with the left mouse button on the Print Composer canvas and position and customize its appearance in the image Item Properties tab.

The image Item Properties tab provides the following functionalities (see figure_composer_11):

Figure Composer 11:

Image Item properties Tab

Main properties, Search directories and Rotation¶

The Main properties and Search directories dialogs of the image Item Properties tab provide the following functionalities (see Figure_composer_12):

Figure Composer 12:

Image Main properties, Search directories and Rotation Dialogs

• The Main properties dialog shows the current image that is displayed in the image item. Click on the [...] button to select a file on your computer.
• This dialog shows all pictures stored in the selected directories.
• The Search directories area allows you to add and remove directories with images in SVG format to the picture database.
• Images can be rotated with the Rotation field.
• Activating the Sync with map checkbox synchronizes the rotation of a picture in the QGIS map canvas (i.e., a rotated north arrow) with the appropriate Print Composer image.

Adding a Legend item to the Print Composer¶

To add a map legend, click the ^{Add new legend} icon, place the element with the left mouse button on the Print Composer canvas and position and customize the appearance in the legend Item Properties tab.

The Item properties of a legend item tab provides the following functionalities (see figure_composer_14):

Figure Composer 13:

Legend Item properties Tab

Main properties¶

The Main properties dialog of the legend Item Properties tab provides the following functionalities (see figure_composer_14):

Figure Composer 14:

Legend Main properties Dialog

• Here, you can adapt the legend title.
• You can also choose which Map item the current legend will refer to in the select list.
• Since QGIS 1.8, you can wrap the text of the legend title on a given character.

Legend items¶

The Legend items dialog of the legend Item Properties tab provides the following functionalities (see figure_composer_15):

Figure Composer 15:

Legend Legend Items Dialog

• The legend items window lists all legend items and allows you to change item order, group layers, remove and restore items in the list, and edit layer names. After changing the symbology in the QGIS main window, you can click on [Update] to adapt the changes in the legend element of the Print Composer. The item order can be changed using the [Up] and [Down] buttons or with ‘drag-and-drop’ functionality.
• The feature count for each vector layer can be shown by enabling the [Sigma] button.
• The legend will be updated automatically if Auto-update is checked.

Fonts, Columns, Symbol and Spacing¶

The Fonts, Columns, Symbol and Spacing dialogs of the legend Item Properties tab provide the following functionalities (see figure_composer_16):

Figure Composer 16:

Legend Fonts, Columns, Symbol and Spacing Dialogs

• You can change the font of the legend title, group, subgroup and item (layer) in the legend item. Click on a category button to open a Select font dialog.
• All these items will get the same Color.
• Legend items can be arranged in several columns. Select the correct value in the Count field.
• Equal column widths sets how legend columns should be adjusted.
• The Split layers option allows a categorized or a graduated layer legend to be divided between columns.
• You can change the width and height of the legend symbol in this dialog.
• Spacing aroung title, group, subgroup, symbol, icon label, box space or column space can be customized through this dialog.

Adding a Scale Bar item to the Print Composer¶

To add a scale bar, click the ^{Add new scalebar} icon, place the element with the left mouse button on the Print Composer canvas and position and customize the appearance in the scale bar Item Properties tab.

The Item properties of a scale bar item tab provides the following functionalities (see figure_composer_17):

Figure Composer 17:

Scale Bar Item properties Tab

Main properties¶

The Main properties dialog of the scale bar Item Properties tab provides the following functionalities (see figure_composer_18):

Figure Composer 18:

Scale Bar Main properties Dialog

• First, choose the map the scale bar will be attached to.
• Then, choose the style of the scale bar. Six styles are available:
  • Single box and Double box styles, which contain one or two lines of boxes alternating colors.
  • Middle, Up or Down line ticks.
  • Numeric, where the scale ratio is printed (i.e., 1:50000).

Units and Segments¶

The Units and Segments dialogs of the scale bar Item Properties tab provide the following functionalities (see figure_composer_19):

Figure Composer 19:

Scale Bar Units and Segments Dialogs

In these two dialogs, you can set how the scale bar will be represented.

• Select the map units used. There are three possible choices: Map Units is the automated unit selection; Meters or Feet force unit conversions.
• The Label field defines the text used to describe the units of the scale bar.
• The Map units per bar unit allows you to fix the ratio between a map unit and its representation in the scale bar.
• You can define how many Segments will be drawn on the left and on the right side of the scale bar, and how long each segment will be (Size field). Height can also be defined.

Display, Fonts and colors¶

The Display and Fonts and colors dialogs of the scale bar Item Properties tab provide the following functionalities (see figure_composer_20):

Figure Composer 20:

Scale Bar Display, Fonts and colors Dialogs

• You can define how the scale bar will be displayed in its frame. Adjust the Box margin between text and frame borders, Labels margin between text and scale bar drawing and the Line width of the scale bar drawing.
• The Alignment in the Display dialog only applies to Numeric styled scale bars and puts text on the left, middle or right side of the frame.

Adding a Basic shape or Arrow item to the Print Composer¶

It is possible to add basic shapes (ellipse, rectangle, triangle) and arrows to the Print Composer canvas: Click the ^{Add basic shape} icon or the ^{Add Arrow} icon, place the element with the left mouse button on the Print Composer canvas and position and customize the appearance in the Item Properties tab.

The Shape item properties tab allows you to draw an ellipse, rectangle, or triangle in the Print Composer canvas. You can define its outline and fill color, the outline width and a clockwise rotation. For the rectangle shape, you can change the value of the corner radius.

Figure Composer 21:

Shape Item properties Tab

The Arrow item properties tab allows you to draw an arrow in the Print Composer canvas. You can define color, outline and arrow width, and it is possible to use a default marker, no marker, or an SVG marker. For the SVG marker, you can additionally add an SVG start and end marker from a directory on your computer.

Figure Composer 22:

Arrow Item properties Tab

Add attribute table values to the Print Composer¶

It is possible to add parts of a vector attribute table to the Print Composer canvas: Click the ^{Add attribute table} icon, place the element with the left mouse button on the Print Composer canvas, and position and customize the appearance in the Item Properties tab.

The Item properties of an attribute table item tab provides the following functionalities (see figure_composer_23):

Figure Composer 23:

Scale Bar Item properties Tab

Main properties, Show grid and Fonts¶

The Main properties, Show grid and Fonts dialogs of the attribute table Item Properties tab provide the following functionalities (see figure_composer_24):

Figure Composer 24:

Attribute table Main properties, Show grid and Fonts Dialog

Figure Composer 25:

Attribute table Select attributes Dialog

• The Table dialog allows you to select the vector layer and columns of the attribute table. Attribute columns can be sorted, and you can specify whether to show values in ascending or descending order (see figure_composer_25).
• You can choose to display the attributes of only features visible on a map. Check Show only visible features and select the corresponding Composer map to filter.
• You can define the Maximum number of rows to be displayed and the margin around text.
• Additionally, you can define the grid characteristics of the table (Stroke width and Color of the grid) and the header and content font.

Add an HTML frame to the Print Composer¶

It is possible to add a clickable frame linked to a URL: Click the ^{Add HTML frame} icon, place the element with the left mouse button on the Print Composer canvas and position and customize the appearance in the Item Properties tab.

Main properties¶

The Main properties dialog of the HTML frame Item Properties tab provides the following functionalities (see figure_composer_26):

Figure Composer 26:

HTML frame Item properties Tab

• Point the URL field to the URL or the HTML file you want to insert in the Composer.
• You can adjust the rendering of the page with the Resize mode.
• Use existing frames constrains the page inside its first frame or in the frame created with the next settings.
• Extent to next page will create as many frames (and corresponding pages) as necessary to render the height of the web page. Each frame can be moved around on the layout. If you resize a frame, the webpage will be divided up between the other frames. The last frame will be trimmed to fit the web page.
• Repeat on every page will repeat the upper left of the web page on every page in frames of the same size.
• Repeat until finished will also create as many frames as the Extend to next page option, except all frames will have the same size.

Size and position¶

Each item inside the Composer can be moved/resized to create a perfect layout. For both operations the first step is to activate the ^{Select/Move item} tool and to click on the item; you can then move it using the mouse while holding the left button. If you need to constrain the movements to the horizontal or the vertical axis, just hold the Shift while moving the mouse. If you need a better precision, you can move a selected item using the Arrow keys on the keyboard; if the movement is too slow, you can speed up it by holding Shift.

A selected item will show squares on its boundaries; moving one of them with the mouse, will resize the item in the corresponding direction. While resizing, holding Shift will maintain the aspect ratio. Holding Ctrl will resize from the item center.

The correct position for an item can be obtained using snapping to grid or smart guides. If you need to disable the snap on the fly just hold Ctrl while moving the mouse.

You can choose multiple items with the ^{Select/Move item} button. Just hold the Shift button and click on all the items you need. You can then resize/move this group just like a single item.

Once you have found the correct position for an item, you can lock it by clicking with the right mouse button. Press the same button another time to unlock it. You can also lock/unlock items using the icons on the toolbar.

To unselect an item, just click on it holding the Shift button.

Inside the Edit menu, you can find actions to select all the items, to clear all selections or to invert the current selection.

Alignment¶

Raising or lowering functionalities for elements are inside the ^{Raise selected items} pull-down menu. Choose an element on the Print Composer canvas and select the matching functionality to raise or lower the selected element compared to the other elements (see table_composer_1).

Figure Composer 27:

Alignment helper lines in the Print Composer

There are several alignment functionalities available within the ^{Align selected items} pull-down menu (see table_composer_1). To use an alignment functionality, you first select some elements and then click on the matching alignment icon. All selected elements will then be aligned within to their common bounding box. When moving items on the Composer canvas, alignment helper lines appear when borders, centers or corners are aligned.

Copy/Cut and Paste items¶

The print composer includes actions to use the common Copy/Cut/Paste functionality for the items in the layout. As usual first you need to select the items using one of the options seen above; at this point the actions can be found in the Edit menu. When using the Paste action, the elements will be pasted according to the current mouse position.

Labels¶

In order to adapt labels to the feature the atlas plugin iterates over, use a label with this special notation [%expression using field_name%]. For example, for a city layer with fields CITY_NAME and ZIPCODE, you could insert this:

“[% ‘The area of ‘ || upper(CITY_NAME) || ‘,’ || ZIPCODE || ‘ is ‘ format_number($area/1000000,2) || ‘ km2’ %]“

That would result in the generated atlas as

“The area of PARIS,75001 is 1.94 km2”.

Preview¶

Once the atlas settings have been configured and map items selected, you can create a preview of all the pages by clicking on Atlas ‣ Preview Atlas and using the arrows, in the same menu, to navigate through all the features.

Generation¶

The atlas generation can be done in different ways. For example, with Atlas ‣ Print Atlas, you can directly print it. You can also create a PDF using Atlas ‣ Export Atlas as PDF: The user will be asked for a directory for saving all the generated PDF files (except if the Single file export when possible has been selected). If you need to print just a page of the atlas, simply start the preview function, select the page you need and click on Composer ‣ Print (or create a PDF).