This can only be changed by editing the drawing tool (Or better, make a copy, and edit the copy).

But, the best way to do it is to utilize a proper sheet naming scheme.

Almost all drawing tools look for sheets that STARTS with something in particular, for example, a drawing tool for the outside sheet will be set to draw on OUTSIDE*. That * is a wildcard, and means anything that starts with the text preceding it.

So, if the drawing tool is set to draw on OUTSIDE*, if your current sheet is called OUTSIDE VEGETATION for example, it will happily use that sheet instead of the default outside sheet. On the other hand, if your current sheet do NOT start with OUTSIDE, it will allways go to the default OUTSIDE sheet even if you have others starting with the word.

This same behavior applies to symbols as well.

Unfortunately, you can't make the background transparent, you'll have to do that in post-processing in another program. And if you plan to do that, your anti-alias should be off, since antialiasing is the sworn enemy of proper background removal. Also, antialiasing off will let the map export faster.

If you are going to convert it to a jpg anyway, you shouldn't worry about the file size of the png though, since that won't really matter in the end anyway. png's are always quite a bit larger than jpeg's.

Note that the default symbol scale for metric maps is 0.3048 . That makes every symbol appropriately scaled, EXCEPT for the scale bar. When placing the scale bar, just right temporarily set the scale to 1.0 (but use the default value for all other symbols)

Wow, that's a great first map. I hope you stick around the forum and make more maps.

Thanks Jim.