How to style arrow markers
Once you've added arrow markers to your locator map, you can change their appearance to your liking. This article explains all the available styling options.
Contents
- Decide between line and flow arrows
- Style line arrows
- Style flow arrows
- Change the color and opacity
- Change the curve
- Change the start and end point
Decide between line and flow arrows
Once you select an arrow in your map, Datawrapper lets you decide if it should be a line arrow or a flow arrow.
❶ Line arrows simply show a connection between two locations on your map. The arrow line is always the same thickness. Line arrows can have arrow heads on both ends.
❷ Flow arrows don't just show "from where to where," but also "how much" – they can be much thicker than line arrows, which makes them great to indicate how much is moving between two points. Flow arrows can also be differently thick at the start and end point, and they can have a fading opacity.
Style line arrows
If you choose an arrow with the Arrow type Line, you have the following options:
Arrow head: Choose between an open and closed arrow head.
Show on both sides: Show the arrow head not just at the end point of your arrow, but also at the start point.
Stroke: Decide between a 2px, 3px, 4px, and 5px thick line for your arrow.
Style flow arrows
If you choose an arrow with the Arrow type Line, you have the following options:
Tapering: Decide if the start or the end point of your arrow should be thicker. You can decide between a narrow tail (first option, shown above) and a narrow tail (second option). You can also choose how much tapering (= thinning/thicking) of the line you want. Setting tapering to 0% means the arrow will be the same width at the start and end. With 50% tapering, the end point will be half the width of the start point.
Weight: Defines the weight of the arrow. Anything between 1px and 50px are possible. For thicker arrows, enter a larger number in the text field next to the slider.
Fade opacity: Turn this one to create an arrow that becomes more and more transparent towards the end point.
Change the color and opacity
No matter if you're choosing a line or flow arrow, you can set the color and opacity of all your colors in the arrow settings:
Change the curve
To change the curvature of your arrow, you can simply click and drag the pink circle in the middle of your arrow on the map:
But as you can see in the video above, there are other ways, too. You can set a curve or straighten your arrow again by clicking on one of the three Curve options.
If you click on Advanced options, you can also set the middle point (at which percentage of the line the pink circle and hence the peak of the curve appears) and the curve intensity (negative values mean a left curve; positive values mean a right curve).
Change the start and end point
To change the start and end point of an existing arrow, simple drag the pink start circle or pink end circle around. You can also open the Advanced options and set the start point and end point yourself by changing the latitude and longitude of both.