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Customizing choropleth map steps and colors

Renée Meloche
Renée Meloche
  • Updated

Available on the following Venngage subscription plans: Free, Premium, Business and Enterprise.

Change the number of steps in the gradient

Click or use Tab + Spacebar to select the map chart, then click (or Tab + Spacebar "Edit Map" in the top toolbar to open the Edit Map panel. 

Click (or Tab + Spacebar) on the Setup tab in the Edit Map panel. 

In the upgraded Venngage Editor, the Maps panel is open in the left sidebar, displaying a thumbnail gallery of popular maps with a search bar at the top of the gallery. A map of China and other islands appears in a gradient of blue against a teal background on the template canvas. A user clicks to close the Maps panel in the left sidebar, and then clicks Edit Map in the top toolbar. The Edit Chart panel opens in the right-hand side of the upgraded Editor, with two tabs visible: Data and Setup. The Data tab is selected, so the user clicks on the Setup tab and the contents of this tab load, including the heading 'Map Style' and tools for customizing the appearance of the map chart on the canvas.

NOTE: To change the number of steps in a map chart, the "Map Type" must be set to "Choropleth". 

Under "Map Style" change the Number of steps from the drop-down menu. A larger number of steps creates a gradient with more colors; a smaller number creates a gradient with less. 

A close-up of the Map Style section of the Setup tab in the Edit Chart panel. Under the heading 'Map Style', a gradient of 5 colors appears from light to dark blue. Underneath the gradient is a drop-down labelled 'Number of steps' with the number 5 beside it. Under this section, a heading 'Customize range' appears with a toggle in the on position, and under this, several text fields that define ranges, e.g., Min-2; 2-33; 34-65.

Define custom range of steps

Use the toggle under the Number of steps drop-down; click or Tab + Spacebar to turn the toggle "on" and type your custom number in the text fields that appear. The first and last ranges should have their lowest and highest values (respectively) set to 'Min' and 'Max' or the lowest and highest numbers in your chart's data set.

In the upgraded Venngage Editor, a map of China and other islands appears in a gradient of blue against a teal background on the template canvas. The Edit Chart panel is open in the right-hand side of the upgraded Editor, with two tabs visible: Data and Setup. The Setup tab is selected, displaying tools for customizing the map chart's appearance. Under the heading 'Map Style', a gradient appears with a range of 5 colors from light to dark blue. Under the gradient image is a drop-down menu labelled 'Number of steps'. The user clicks on the drop-down and changes the number from 5 to 9. The image of the gradient changes, to reflect the larger number of steps. On the design canvas, the map changes to reflect the bigger gradient, with different countries on the map now being colored in different tones of light to dark blue. In the Setup tab in the Edit chart panel, under the heading 'Color Presets', different color gradients appear like blue, teal, purple, red purple, etc. The user clicks on the gradient 'Yellow Red' and the color of the map on the canvas changes. The gradient is now light yellow to dark red. 

NOTE: The number of steps is helpful for viewers to distinguish at a glance the areas with the highest numbers (generally the darkest) and the areas with the lowest (generally the lightest).

Learn more about using choropleth maps to represent data. 

Change the color of the gradient

Choose from different color gradients by clicking (or Tab + Spacebar) on the gradients under Color Presets. The higher the "steps" number, the greater the range in the gradients will be. 

No data color

You can also add a custom color for cells with no data, that is, blank cells.

The default color is a light grey; to change it, click on the square next to the label "No data color" to open the Color Tool widget.

Choose from a shade in the color wheel, or My Brand Kit colors, or use the eyedropper to select a color from your device and use it. 

Border color

The border is the line that divides the geographical areas on the map. By default, the color is set to white, or #FFFFFF. 

Click on the square next to the label "Border Color" to open the Color Tool widget.

Choose from a shade in the color wheel, or My Brand Kit colors, or use the eyedropper to select a color from your device and use it. 

 

 

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