Yes, the important things is the images on disk, not the symbol themselves inside CC3+.

This dialog is shown if there are no catalogs matching the current filters (which depends on map style) or if there are multiple catalogs. If it is normal behavior or not really depends on the style of your current map. For example if you start a city map, and then switches to the Dungeon Designer toolbar and click the button, it is normal behaviour, because there are no wall feature catalog for city maps. On the other hand, if you are using a standard dungeon map like the SS4 Mike Schley or DD3 Dungeon style, you certainly shouldn't get an empty list here. But again, it depends on the type and style of your current map.

Certainly not if you are doing a dungeon map, as that is a city filter (The CD at the beginning stands for City Designer). Thjat should only be the active master filter if you are working with a city map in the CD3 bitmap A style

Your map should normally load the correct toolbars and master filters every time you open the map, so you shouldn't need to mess around with these values.

Those lines you see are a selection. You didn't say which tutorial in the tome you followed, but since you are getting selection lines, I am guessing the one on page 717. If so, you are getting exactly what you should. That tutorial is for loading a selection matching the shapes of your continent, and then you can use FT3 commands on that selection, for example raise land and such. Once you use those commands, you should see actual land forming inside that selection, giving you your landmass.

Your map is a pretty poor selection mask though, as the sidebar by that tutorial explains, white is used to determine inland areas, black is sea. So right now, your map depicts a planet that is basically just land, except for a few very thin river-sized lines of sea.

Another thing when it comes to text, make sure to pick a font available on your computer. The first list shown in the Text Properties dialog are fonts defined in your map, and may include a font you don't have (Click 'More fonts' to access the list of fonts on your computer). If you pick a font you don't have, CC3+ will render a replacement font, usually Arial, which could result in no visible change if the font was already rendering using Arial.

Also, you said you used edit properties to check sheet/layer. Be aware that the values listed here are NOT the current properties of the entity picked, but rather the currently set properties (as seen on the status bar) used when creating new entities. Change Properties/Edit Properties is not a way of checking an entity, you need to use List as Jim said to do that.

The terrain tools for this map doesn't use symbol fill, but rather hatch styles. These have a fixed scale. This is discussed on page 2 for the mapping guide for that annual issue.

The only way of changing scale for these fills is either scaling things after they have been drawn (not very practical when you try to make the area fit something) or by editing the hatch style fills themselves. These are regular CC3+ drawings, and lives in the @Hatch Styles folder. Obviously, you shouldn't edit the originals, but rather create a copy and then edit that. You can then make copies of the drawing tools that utilizes your copy of the fills.