Understanding Autoscale

1. When you zoom in to a map, more detail is shown. When you zoom out in a map, less detail is shown. This feature is called autoscale. 

2. Autoscale makes maps more readable by preventing too many features from being drawn in too small a space. If your map shows all of the states contained in your region, you donít want to see all the streets.  When you zoom in on a single city, however, you do want to see streets. Autoscale makes this happen automatically.

3. When autoscale is enabled, the software checks the scale of a map each time it is drawn and decides whether or not each layer should be drawn. The decision is based on the autoscale range that is set for that layer.

For example:

4. Map Scale shows the current map scale.

5. Largest shows the largest scale at which the layer will be shown.

6, Smallest shows the smallest scale at which the layer will be shown.

7. For this map layer, county boundaries will show if the map is zoomed in to a scale no more than 1:1,000 or zoomed out to a scale no more than 1:50,000,000.

8. Map scales are shown as ratios. A scale of 1:1,000 means that every feature on the map is shown at one thousandth of its actual size.  A scale of 1:50,000,000 means that every feature on the map is shown at one fifty millionth of its actual size.