General Tools¶

Configuring map themes¶

The button allows you to configure Map Themes in the legend. These themes are helpful to quickly switch between different preconfigured layer combinations and can also be used in print layout. To create a map theme, activate the layers you want to include and configure the desired layer styles. Then press the button and choose Add Theme… from the drop-down menu and enter a name for the new theme. In the map theme it is also recorded which layers, groups or legend items that are expanded or collapsed. The new theme is listed at the bottom of the drop-down menu and can be restored by clicking on it.

The Replace Theme ‣ option allows you to overwrite an existing theme with the currently enabled layers and their styles while the Remove Current Theme button deletes the active theme.

All configured themes are also accessible in the print layout. This allows you to create a map layout based on specific themes (see Main properties).

Overview of the context menu of the Layers panel¶

At the bottom of the toolbar, the main component of the Layers panel is the frame listing vector or raster layers added to the project and, those layers can be organized in groups. Depending on the item selected in the panel, a right-click shows a dedicated set of options presented below.

Option	Vector Layer	Raster Layer	Group
Zoom to Layer/Group
Zoom to Selection
Show in Overview
Show Feature Count
Copy Layer/Group
Rename Layer/Group
Zoom to Native Resolution (100%)
Stretch Using Current Extent
Update SQL Layer…
Add Group
Duplicate Layer
Remove Layer/Group…
Move Out of Group
Move to Top
Check and all its Parents
Group Selected
Open Attribute Table
Toggle Editing
Current Edits ‣
Filter…
Set Layer Scale Visibility…
Zoom to Visible Scale
Set CRS ‣
Set Layer/Group CRS…
Set Project CRS from Layer
Set Group WMS Data…
Mutually Exclusive Group
Check and all its children (Ctrl-click)
Uncheck and all its children (Ctrl-click)
Export ‣
Save As…
Save Features As…
Save Selected Features As…
Save As Layer Definition File…
Save As QGIS Layer Style File…
Styles ‣
Copy Style
Paste Style
Add…
Rename Current…
Properties…

Table: Context menu from Layers Panel items

For GRASS vector layers, ^{Toggle editing} is not available. See section Digitizing and editing a GRASS vector layer for information on editing GRASS vector layers.

Interact with Groups and layers¶

Layers in the legend window can be organized into groups. There are two ways to do this:

1. Press the icon to add a new group. Type in a name for the group and press Enter. Now click on an existing layer and drag it onto the group.
2. Select some layers, right click in the legend window and choose Group Selected. The selected layers will automatically be placed in a new group.

To bring a layer out of a group, you can drag it out, or right click on it and choose Move Out of Group; the layer is moved from the group and placed above the group. Groups can also be nested inside other groups. If a layer is placed in a nested group, this function will move the layer out of any of the nested groups.

To move a group or a layer to the top of the layer panel, you can either drag it to the top, or choose Move to Top. If you use this option on a layer nested in a group, the layer is moved to the top in the current group.

The checkbox for a group will show or hide all the layers in the group with one click.

Enabling the Mutually Exclusive Group option you can make a group have only one layer visible at the same time. Whenever a layer within the group is set visible the others will be toggled not visible.

It is possible to select more than one layer or group at the same time by holding down the Ctrl key while selecting the layers with the left mouse button. You can then move all selected layers to a new group at the same time.

You may also delete more than one layer or group at once by selecting several items with the Ctrl key and pressing Ctrl+D afterwards. This way, all selected layers or groups will be removed from the layers list.

Editing vector layer style¶

From the Layers panel, you have shortcuts to easily and quickly edit the layer rendering. Right-click on a vector layer and select Styles ‣ in the list in order to:

• see the currently applied styles to the layer. In case you defined many styles for the layer, you can switch from one to another and have your layer rendering automatically updated in the map canvas.
• copy the current style, and when applicable, paste a copied style from another layer
• rename the current style, add a new one (which is actually a copy of the current one) or delete the current style (when multiple styles available).

Whether the features in the vector layer have all the same unique symbol or they are classified (in that case, the layer is displayed in a tree structure with each class as sub-item), the following options are available at layer level or class level:

• a Edit Symbol… button to open the The Symbol Selector dialog and update any property (symbol, size, color…) of the layer or feature symbol. Double-clicking on a feature does also open the Symbol Selector dialog.
• a Color Selector widget with a Color Wheel from which you can click a color and have it automatically update the symbol fill color. For convenience, Recent colors are available at the bottom of the color wheel.
• a Show All Items and Hide All Items to toggle on or off the visibility of all the classes of features. This avoids (un)checking items one by one.

Scale Dependent Rendering¶

Scale-dependent rendering allows you to specify the minimum and maximum scales at which a layer (raster or vector) will be visible. To set scale-dependent rendering, open the Properties dialog by double-clicking on the layer in the legend. On the Rendering tab, tick the Scale dependent visibility checkbox and enter the Minimum (exclusive) and Maximum (inclusive) scale values.

You can also activate the scale dependent visibility on a layer from the Layers panel. Right-click on the layer and in the context menu, select Set Layer Scale Visibility.

The ^{Set to current canvas scale} button helps you use the current map canvas scale as boundary of the range visibility.

Controlling Map Rendering¶

Map rendering can be controlled in various ways, as described below.

With the mouse wheel¶

You can press the mouse wheel to pan inside of the main window (on macOS, you may need to hold cmd key). You can roll the mouse wheel to zoom in and out on the map; the mouse cursor position will be the center of the zoomed area of interest. Holding down Ctrl while rolling the mouse wheel results in a finer zoom.

With the arrow keys¶

Panning the map is possible with the arrow keys. Place the mouse cursor inside the map area, and click on the right arrow key to pan east, left arrow key to pan west, up arrow key to pan north, and down arrow key to pan south.

You can also use the space bar to temporarily cause mouse movements to pan the map. The PgUp and PgDown keys on your keyboard will cause the map display to zoom in or out following the zoom factor set. Pressing Ctrl + or Ctrl - also performs an immediate zoom in/out on the map canvas.

When certain map tools are active (Identify, Measure…), you can perform a zoom by holding down Shift and dragging a rectangle on the map to zoom to that area. This is enabled for the map tools which are not selection tools (since they use Shift for adding to selection) nor edit tools.

Creating a Bookmark¶

To create a bookmark:

1. Zoom or pan to the area of interest.
2. Select the menu option View ‣ New Bookmark or press Ctrl-B. The Spatial Bookmark panel opens with the newly created bookmark.
3. Enter a descriptive name for the bookmark (up to 255 characters).
4. Check the In Project box if you wish to save the bookmark in the project file.
5. Press Enter to add the bookmark or click elsewhere.

Note that you can have multiple bookmarks with the same name.

Working with Bookmarks¶

To use or manage bookmarks, select the menu option View ‣ Show Bookmarks or press Ctrl+7. The Spatial Bookmarks panel allows you to:

• Zoom to a Bookmark: select the desired bookmark and then click Zoom To Bookmark. You can also zoom to a bookmark by double-clicking on it.
• Delete a Bookmark: select the bookmark and click Delete Bookmark. Confirm your choice.
• Import or Export a bookmark: To share or transfer your bookmarks between computers you can use the Import/Export Bookmarks pull down menu in the Spatial Bookmarks dialog. All the bookmarks are transferred.

You can also zoom to saved bookmarks by typing the bookmark name in the locator.

Grid¶

^Grid allows you to add a coordinate grid and coordinate annotations to the map canvas.

The Grid Dialog

1. Select from menu View ‣ Decorations ‣ Grid. The dialog starts (see figure_decorations_grid).
2. Activate the Enable grid checkbox and set grid definitions according to the layers loaded in the map canvas.
3. Activate the Draw annotations checkbox and set annotation definitions according to the layers loaded in the map canvas.
4. Click [Apply] to verify that it looks as expected or [OK] if you’re satisfied.

Copyright Label¶

^{Copyright label} adds a copyright label using the text you prefer to the map.

The Copyright Dialog

1. Select from menu View ‣ Decorations ‣ Copyright Label. The dialog starts (see figure_decorations_copyright).
2. Make sure the Enable Copyright Label checkbox is checked.
3. Enter the text you want to place on the map. You can use HTML as shown in the example.
4. Choose the placement of the label from the Placement combo box.
5. You can refine the placement of the item by setting a Horizontal and/or Vertical Marging from (Canvas) Edge. These values can be a distance in Millimeter or Pixels or set as Percentage of the width or height of the map canvas.
6. You can change the color to apply.
7. Click [Apply] to verify that it looks as expected or [OK] if you’re satisfied.

In the example above, which is the default, QGIS places a copyright symbol followed by the date in the lower right-hand corner of the map canvas.

North Arrow¶

^{North Arrow} adds a north arrow on the map canvas. You can control the style and placement of the north arrow.

The North Arrow Dialog

To add a north arrow:

1. Select from menu View ‣ Decorations ‣ North Arrow. The dialog starts (see figure_decorations_north).
2. Make sure the Enable north arrow checkbox is checked.
3. Optionally, change the color, size or choose a custom svg.
4. Optionally, change the angle or choose Automatic to let QGIS determine the direction.
5. Optionally, choose the placement from the Placement combo box.
6. Optionally, refine the placement of the arrow by setting a Horizontal and/or Vertical Marging from (Canvas) Edge. These values can be a distance in Millimeter or Pixels or set as Percentage of the width or height of the map canvas.
7. Click [Apply] to verify that it looks as expected and [OK] if you’re satisfied.

Scale Bar¶

^{Scale Bar} adds a simple scale bar to the map canvas. You can control the style and placement, as well as the labelling of the bar.

The Scale Bar Dialog

QGIS only supports displaying the scale in the same units as your map frame. So if the units of your layers are in meters, you can’t create a scale bar in feet. Likewise, if you are using decimal degrees, you can’t create a scale bar to display distance in meters.

To add a scale bar:

1. Select from menu View ‣ Decorations ‣ Scale Bar. The dialog starts (see figure_decorations_scale).
2. Make sure the Enable scale bar checkbox is checked.
3. Choose the style from the Scale bar style combo box.
4. Select the color for the bar Color of bar or use the default black color.
5. Set the Size of bar .
6. Optionally, check Automatically snap to round number on resize to display values easy-to-read.
7. Choose the placement from the Placement combo box.
8. You can refine the placement of the item by setting a Horizontal and/or Vertical Marging from (Canvas) Edge. These values can be a distance in Millimeter or Pixels or set as Percentage of the width or height of the map canvas.
9. Click [Apply] to verify that it looks as expected or [OK] if you’re satisfied.

Layout Extents¶

^{Layout Extents} adds the extents of map item(s) in print layout(s) to the canvas. When enabled, the extents of all map items within all print layouts are shown using a lightly dotted border labeled with the name of the print layout and map item. You can control the style and labeling of the displayed layout extents. This decoration is useful when you are tweaking the positioning of map elements such as labels, and need to know the actual visible region of print layouts.

The Layout Extents Dialog

Example of displayed layout extents in a QGIS project with two print layouts. The print layout named ‘Sights’ contains two map items, while the other print layout contains one map item.

To add layout extent(s):

1. Select from menu View ‣ Decorations ‣ Layout Extents. The dialog starts (see figure_decorations_layoutextents).
2. Make sure the Show layout extents checkbox is checked.
3. Optionally, change the symbol and labeling of the extents
4. Click [Apply] to verify that it looks as expected and [OK] if you’re satisfied.

General information¶

QGIS provides four means of measuring geometries:

• the interactive measurement tools ,
• measuring in the ^{Field Calculator},
• derived measures in the Identifying Features tool,
• and a vector analysis tool: Vector ‣ Geometry Tools ‣ Export/Add Geometry Columns

Measuring works within projected coordinate systems (e.g., UTM) and unprojected data. The first three measuring tools behave equally to global project settings:

• If “on the fly” CRS transformation (see Define On The Fly (OTF) CRS Transformation) is enabled, the default measurement metric is - different from most other GIS - ellipsoidal, using the ellipsoid defined in File ‣ Project properties ‣ General. This is true both when geographic and projected coordinate systems are defined for the project.
• If you want to calculate the projected / planimetric area or distance using cartesian maths, the measurement ellipsoid has to be set to “None / Planimetric” (File ‣ Project properties ‣ CRS). However, with a geographic (= unprojected) CRS defined for the data and project, area and distance measurement will be ellipsoidal.
• If “on the fly” CRS transformation is disabled, the measurement metric is planimetric when the project coordinate system is projected and ellipsoidal when the project coordinate system is unprojected / geographic.

However, neither the identify tool nor the field calculator will transform your data to the project CRS before measuring. If you want to achieve this, you have to use the vector analysis tool: Vector ‣ Geometry Tools ‣ Export/Add Geometry Columns. Here, measurement is by default planimetric except if you choose the ellipsoidal measure.

Measure length, areas and angles interactive¶

Click the icon in the Attribute toolbar to begin measurements. The downward arrow near the icon helps you switch to the convenient tool to measure length, area or angle. The default unit used in the dialog is the one set in Project ‣ Project Properties ‣ General menu.

All measuring modules use the snapping settings from the digitizing module (see section Setting the Snapping Tolerance and Search Radius). So, if you want to measure exactly along a line feature, or around a polygon feature, first set its layer snapping tolerance. Now, when using the measuring tools, each mouse click (within the tolerance setting) will snap to that layer.

By default, ^{Measure Line}: QGIS measures real distances between given points according to a defined ellipsoid. The tool then allows you to click points on the map. Each segment length, as well as the total, shows up in the measure window. To stop measuring, click your right mouse button.

Note that you can use the drop-down list near the total to interactively change the measurement units while measuring. This unit is kept for the widget until a new or another project is opened.

The Info section in the dialog explains how calculations are made according to CRS settings available.

Measure Distance

^{Measure Area}: Areas can also be measured. In the measure window, the accumulated area size appears. Right-click to stop drawing. The Info section is also available as well as the ability to switch between different area units.

Measure Area

^{Measure Angle}: You can also measure angles. The cursor becomes cross-shaped. Click to draw the first segment of the angle you wish to measure, then move the cursor to draw the desired angle. The measure is displayed in a pop-up dialog.

Measure Angle

Selecting manually in the map canvas¶

To select one or several features with the mouse, you can use one of the following tools:

• ^{Select Features by area or single click}
• ^{Select Features by Polygon}
• ^{Select Features by Freehand}
• ^{Select Features by Radius}

While using the Select Feature(s) tool, holding Shift or Ctrl toggles whether feature is selected (ie either adds to the current selection or remove from it).

For the other tools, different behaviors can be performed holding:

• Shift: add features to the current selection
• Ctrl: substract features from the current selection
• Ctrl + Shift: intersect with current selection, ie only keep overlapping features from the current selection
• Alt: select features that are totally within the selection shape. Combined to Shift or Ctrl keys, you can add or substract features to/from the current selection.

Automatic selection¶

The other selection tools, also available from the Attribute table, perform a selection based on feature’s attribute or its selection state (note that attribute table and map canvas show the same information, so if you select one feature in attribute table, it will be selected in map canvas also):

• ^{Select By Expression…} allows user to select features using expression dialog.
• ^{Select Features By Value…} or press F3
• ^{Deselect Features from All Layers} or press Ctrl+Shift+A to deselect all selected features in all layers.
• ^{Select All Features} or press Ctrl+A to select all features in the current layer.
• ^{Invert Feature Selection} to invert the selection in the current layer.

For example, if you want to find regions that are boroughs from regions.shp of the QGIS sample data, you can use the ^{Select features using an Expression} icon. Then, you open the Fields and Values menu and choose the field that you want to query. Double-click the field ‘TYPE_2’ and also click [Load all unique values] in the right panel. From the list, choose and double-click ‘Borough’. In the Expression field, then you’d write the following query:

"TYPE_2"  =  'Borough'

From the expression builder dialog, you can also use the Function list ‣ Recent (Selection) to make a selection that you used before. The dialog remembers the last 20 used expressions. See Expressions chapter for more information and some example.

Select Features By Value¶

This selection tool opens the layer’s feature form allowing the user to choose, for each field, which value to look for, if the search should be case sensitive, and the operation that should be used.

Filter/Select features using form dialog

Alongside each field, there is a drop-down list with the operation options to control the search behaviour. The common options are:

• Exclude Field - The field will not be used for searching
• Equal to (=)
• Not equal to
• Is missing (null)
• Is not missing (not null)

For numeric and datetime fields, the additional options are:

• Greater than (>)
• Less than (<)
• Greater than or equal to (>=)
• Less than or equal to (<=)
• Between (inclusive)
• Is not between (inclusive)

For text fields, the additional options are:

• Contains
• Does not contain
• Starts with
• Ends with

For the text options above, it is also possible to use the Case sensitive option.

After setting all search options, you can use the Select features button to select the matching features. The drop-down options are:

• Select features
• Add to current selection
• Filter current selection
• Remove from current current selection

You can also clean all search options using the Reset form button.

Once the conditions are set, you can also either:

• Zoom to features in the map canvas without the need of a preselection;
• or Flash features, highlighting the concerned features. This is a handy way to identify a feature without selection or using the Identify tool. Note that the flash does not alter the map canvas extent and would be visible only if the feature resides in the current canvas.

Using the Identify Features tool¶

QGIS offers two ways to identify features with the ^{Identify Features} tool:

• left click will identify features according to the mode set in the Identify Results panel
• right click will fetch all the snapped features from all the visible layers. This will open a context menu, allowing the user to choose more precisely the features to identify or the action to execute on it.

If you click on feature(s), the Identify Results dialog will list information about the clicked feature(s). The default view is a tree view where the first item is the name of the layer and its children are its identified feature(s). Each feature is described by the name of a field along with its value. This field is the one set in Layer Properties ‣ Display. Then follows all the other information about the feature.

Feature informations¶

The Identify Results dialog can be customized to display custom fields, but by default it will display three kinds of information:

• Actions: Actions can be added to the identify feature windows. The action is run by clicking on the action label. By default, only one action is added, namely View feature form for editing. You can define more actions in the layer’s properties dialog (see Actions Properties).
• Derived: This information is calculated or derived from other information. This includes:
  • the feature ID;
  • general information about its geometry:
    • depending on the geometry type, the cartesian measurements of length, perimeter or area in the layer’s CRS units;
    • depending on the geometry type and if an ellipsoid is set in the project properties dialog for Measurements, the ellipsoidal values of length, perimeter or area using the chosen units;
    • the count of geometry parts in the feature and the number of the part you clicked on;
    • and the count of vertices in the feature.
  • coordinate information, using the project properties Coordinates display settings:
    • the X and Y coordinate values of the clicked point;
    • the number of the closest vertex to the clicked point;
    • the X and Y (and Z/M if applicable) coordinate values of the closest vertex;
    • in case you click on a curved line using the info tool, QGIS will also display the radius of that section in the panel result.
• Data attributes: This is the list of attribute fields and values for the feature that has been clicked.

Identify Results dialog

The Identify Results dialog¶

At the top of the window, you have seven icons:

• ^{Expand tree}
• ^{Collapse tree}
• ^{Default behavior} to define whether next identified features information should be collapsed or expanded
• ^{View the feature form}
• ^{Clear Results}
• ^{Copy selected feature to clipboard}
• ^{Print selected HTML response}

At the bottom of the window, you have the Mode and View comboboxes. With the Mode combobox you can define from which layers features should be identified:

• Current layer: only features from the selected layer are identified. The layer may not be visible in the canvas.
• Top down, stop at first: for only features from the upper visible layer.
• Top down: for all features from the visible layers. The results are shown in the panel.
• and Layer selection: opens a context menu where the user selects the layer to identify features from. Operates like a right-click. Only the chosen features will be shown in the result panel.

The View can be set as Tree, Table or Graph. ‘Table’ and ‘Graph’ views can only be set for raster layers.

The identify tool allows you to Auto open a form. If checked, each time a single feature is identified QGIS will open a form showing its attributes. This is a handy way to quickly edit a feature’s attributes.

Other functions can be found in the context menu of the identified item. For example, from the context menu you can:

• View the feature form
• Zoom to feature
• Copy feature: Copy all feature geometry and attributes
• Toggle feature selection: Adds identified feature to selection
• Copy attribute value: Copy only the value of the attribute that you click on
• Copy feature attributes: Copy the attributes of the feature
• Clear result: Remove results in the window
• Clear highlights: Remove features highlighted on the map
• Highlight all
• Highlight layer
• Activate layer: Choose a layer to be activated
• Layer properties: Open layer properties window
• Expand all
• Collapse all

Save in plain text file¶

Clicking the Style ‣ Save Style, you can save the style as a:

• QGIS layer style file (.qml)
• or SLD file (.sld), only available for vector layers.

Used on file based format layers (.shp, .tab…), Save as Default generates a .qml file along the layer (with the same name). SLDs can be exported from any type of renderer – single symbol, categorized, graduated or rule-based – but when importing an SLD, either a single symbol or rule-based renderer is created. That means that categorized or graduated styles are converted to rule-based. If you want to preserve those renderers, you have to stick to the QML format. On the other hand, it can be very handy sometimes to have this easy way of converting styles to rule-based.

Save in database¶

Vector layer style can also be stored in a database if the layer datasource is a database provider. Supported formats are PostGIS, GeoPackage, SpatiaLite, MSSQL and Oracle. The layer style is saved inside a table (named layer_styles) of the database. Click on Save Style ‣ Save in database item then fill in the dialog to define a style name, add a description, a .ui file if applicable and check if the style should be the default style.

You can save several styles for a single table in the database. However each table can have only one default style. Default style can be saved in the layer database or in the QGIS local database, a SQLite database in the ~/.qgis2/ directory (where QGIS stores its local settings).

Save Style in database Dialog

Load style¶

When loading a layer in QGIS, if a default style already exists for this layer, QGIS loads the layer with this style. Also Style ‣ Restore Default looks for and loads that file when pressed, replacing current style of the layer.

The Style ‣ Load Style helps you apply any saved style to a layer. While plain text file style (.sld or .qml) can be applied to any layer whatever its format is, loading styles stored in database is only possible if the layer is from the same database or the style is stored in the QGIS local database.

The Load Style from Database dialog displays a list of related styles to the layer found in the database and all the other styles saved in it, with name and description.

Using the data-defined assistant interface¶

When the ^{Data-defined override} button is associated to a numeric or color parameter, it has an Assistant… option that allows you to modulate how the data is applied to the parameter, for each feature. The assistant lets you:

• define the Input data, ie:
  • the attribute to represent, using the Field listbox or the ^{Set column expression} function (see Expressions)
  • the range of values to represent: you can manually enter the values or use the ^{Fetch value range from layer} button to automatically fill these fields with the minimum and maximum values returned by the chosen attribute or the expression applied to your data.
• Apply transform curve: By default, output values (see below for setting) are applied to input features following a linear scaling. You can override this logic: enable the transform option, click on the graphic to add break point(s) and drag the point(s) to apply a custom distribution;
• define the Output values: the options vary according to the parameter to define. You can globally set:
  • the minimum and maximum values to apply to the selected property. In case of a color setting, you’ll need to provide a color ramp;
  • the Scale method of representation which can be Flannery, Exponential, Surface or Radius;
  • the Exponent to use for data scaling;
  • the output value or color to represent features with NULL values.

When compatible with the property, a live-update preview is displayed on the right of the dialog and helps you control the value scaling.

The data-defined size assistant

The values presented in the varying size assistant above will set the size ‘Data-defined override’ with:

coalesce(scale_exp(Importance, 1, 20, 2, 10, 0.57), 1)