How to edit multiple markers at once
Locator maps can become quite dense with information very quickly: you may be working on a map with dozens of markers where some should take on similar qualities. Datawrapper makes it easy to edit many markers at the same time, to reduce redundant editing. This article explains how.
Contents
- Editing multiple markers at once
- Copying and pasting style settings
- Bring all your markers into the map view
Editing multiple markers at once
It's important to note that each type of marker (points, lines, and areas) can take on different properties, so different options will appear depending on the type of markers you've selected.
When you select multiple types of markers, you'll see a menu breaking down the editing options by type. The first tab will be All, which includes the attributes that apply to all of your markers. Currently, that's just tooltips, which you can toggle on or add the same text to for all of your markers:
The next tabs in this menu will correspond to each type of marker present in your selection. For example, if you selected multiple point markers, you'll have all of the same point styling options that you can refine in a single point marker (this article is a nice overview of those styling options for point markers).
When you have multiple area or line markers selected, you'll also have the full suite of marker settings for those marker types as well. You'll find a breakdown of those options in this article.
Regardless of what type of markers you're working on, the settings you configure in that menu will apply to all of the markers you have selected, so it's a good idea to be careful about what markers you select. This is where grouping markers can come in handy - take a look at this Academy article on how to manage your markers for more on grouping markers!
Copying and pasting style settings
Let's say you've already made the edits you need on one particular marker, and you want to apply those settings to a lot of other markers. Copying settings is a way to take those edits and apply them to another (or more than one). To do that, select the marker with your desired settings, and click the three dot menu icon. Select Styles, then choose Copy styles - if you're using keyboard shortcuts, you can use Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + C here. Next, you can select the marker(s) that should take that styling. Click the menu icon one more time, hit Styles and then Paste styles (or, use Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + V as a keyboard shortcut), and you're all set!
If you've selected different types of markers or a group to paste your settings onto, don't worry! The settings you've copied will only apply to the markers of the same type.
Bear in mind that all the settings from the original marker you copied will be pasted onto the selected markers that match your copied marker type. If you've copied settings you didn't want to apply, you can restore the previous version by undoing your changes (Cmd/Ctrl+Z).
If you're not sure how to style one or multiple markers in your map, and you'd like to try out a style before committing to it, we recommend duplicating your markers. You can duplicate any number of markers or groups of markers, hide the originals, then play around with the duplicates. Learn here how to duplicate and hide markers and groups.
Bring all your markers into the map view
To make sure that all markers on your map are visible, you can adjust the view of your map by zooming in on the specific area of interest, or by moving the viewport until you can clearly see the markers. Datawrapper automatically detects when your markers are within the viewport, and if they're not, you'll see an option to Fit map view to markers.
And that's it! You now know about ways to edit multiple markers. If you'd like to try it out for yourself, you can build your own locator map from scratch, or take some inspiration from this article with example locator maps. But, if anything's unclear or not working how it should, let us know at support@datawrapper.de