Overview
The visual appearance of a Map is controlled by themes and styles created in the Styles Editor and distributed via the Styles Manager. In the Map Editor, users apply available styles — they do not create them.
Themes
Themes define the visual look of the entire map — land colors, watercolors, road colors, label fonts, line width and more. The Map Editor provides a set of pre-defined themes assigned to your project.
To apply a theme:
- Click the Maps Settings in the Feature Panel.
- Click the Map Theme selection.
- Select a theme from the list of available themes for your project.
- The map canvas updates immediately to reflect the new theme.
Available theme types
Themes created in the Styles Editor are available in Map Editor. Common theme types include:
| Theme Type | Typical Use |
| Dark News | Breaking news; high contrast dark background |
| Clean / Light | Standard news coverage; clean white or light grey land |
| Satellite-inspired | Conflict or geographic analysis stories |
| Election Night | Custom branding for election coverage |
| Sports | Team colors or event-specific branding |
| Custom organizational | Station-specific branding controlled by your style package |
Safe title overlay
Safe title overlays are reference images that show broadcast-safe areas — typically the action-safe and title-safe zones defined for your broadcast format. They are used during map design to ensure labels and key content are within safe zones.
To display the safe title overlay:
- Click the Maps Settings in the Feature Panel.
- Click on Safe Title selection.
- Toggle Safe Title Overlay on.
- The overlay appears as a translucent guide over the map canvas.
- Toggle it off before exporting.
Localization
Map labels can be localized to display place names in different languages. Localization is set at the project level in Project Defaults (Map Settings) and applies to all maps in the project.
To change the localization:
- In Map Settings (Project Defaults), select the desired language for map labels.
- The change applies to country names, city names, and all geographic labels that have localized data available.
Color palettes
Color palettes are defined in the Styles Editor and made available in the Map Editor color picker. When applying fill colors to polygons, locators, or other elements, you select colors from the palettes assigned to your project.
This ensures visual consistency across all maps produced within the same project and organization.