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Skills Lab

If the idea of telling a story seems intimidating to you, or you’re not sure where to start, you’ve come to the right place.By the end of this article, you’ll know the basics of good storytelling, and (hopefully) demystifying this process will make getting started not so scary after all. Let’s dive right in.

Unlock your inner storyteller

Meet your new favorite way to tell stories. With StoryMaps, the future of digital storytelling is here to bring together media, maps, and text in ways you never thought possible.

StoryMaps

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Add a button readers can use to change the appearance of the map in the media panel (you must add an express map first)

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Browse Living Atlas

Browse the full ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World, Esri’s curated collection of maps, scenes, apps, and datasets from around the globe. If you find a map you’d like to include in your story, add it to your favorites and it will appear under the "My Favorites" tab above.

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Drawing tools are the heart of express maps. Explore the drawing toolbar and try adding points or lines, tracing areas freehand, or using the text tool to make a custom label.

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Configure what people see when your item appears on StoryMaps, social media sites, and search engines

Text formatting

Text block conversion

At the beginning of a text block, type the characters below to convert the block to a different type. You can use these shortcuts for empty text blocks and text blocks that already have text.

Lists

Place cursor at beginning of list item and then type the characters below.

Use this immersive block to create a sequence of presentation-like slides that your readers navigate laterally.

With slideshow, images, videos, or express maps fill the entire slide background. You can add concise bits of text to each slide to provide context, and reposition the narrative panel to ensure the key parts of your media remain visible.

Who can see your collection after it is published

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Anyone can view this collection. It can also be shared with anyone on StoryMaps

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Build a better world—one story at a time. Enter the global competition by December 6.

Enter the 2024 ArcGIS StoryMaps Competition

Transform your maps and geographic information system (GIS) work into interactive content that informs, inspires, and engages stakeholders

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Check out the latest features and enhancements

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Tell your story in minutes with frames. Drop your pictures into easy-to-use templates, then share these experiences with friends and social channels from anywhere. Frames creation is available now on the StoryMaps mobile app!

Create frames on the StoryMaps mobile app

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This will create a copy of this story in your account as a draft. The copy will include any unpublished changes and retain all settings from the original story, including analytics configuration details.

Express maps and uploaded media will be copied into the new draft. The new story will reference any embedded content such as images, web maps, and websites.

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Save yourself time with these simple starting points. You can always add more blocks later if you want.

Readers explore a curated set of places in whatever order they choose

Explorer map tour

Walk your audience through a list of locations sequentially

Guided map tour

An immersive block with stationary media panel and scrolling narrative panel

Sidecar

Quick start

Learning and resources

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Use this sample story to preview your custom theme. As you modify colors, typography, and more, those changes will be reflected here.

This is your story’s title

This story includes several of the pieces you might use in your own story–like paragraphs, buttons, separators, and more. To get started, select a section of the styling panel and make some adjustments. As you adjust different elements, you’ll see this story adjust to demonstrate how they look. Try changing the paragraph font, and see what happens to this text.

This is the title for the story credits. It uses the title font.

This is where the credit description goes; it uses the paragraph font.

Next, try adjusting the button style and see how your selection affects the button below. You’ll also notice that it uses the paragraph font for its text.

You can style your paragraph text to use bold, italics, and bold italics, so you can emphasize important text accordingly. These come pre-packaged with the fonts you’ve chosen, so there’s nothing extra you need to configure.

Quotes use the theme’s title font, but you can also choose one of several different styling options.

Your theme’s accent color is used in both quotes (see above) and separators (below). If you add an express map to your story, your drawn features will use the accent color too.

You have a few different options for separator styles; toggle between them and see how the separator above changes.

Wondering what embed cards look like? Check out the one below!

Choose an existing theme as a starting point, then customize it however you like

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Cool, you’ve made it to the knowledge base. Consider this the place to be if you’re wondering how a specific feature works, which file types you can use, what different menus do, that kind of thing. Can’t find the answer you’re looking for? <feedback>Let us know</feedback>.

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Welcome to a new era of digital storytelling

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The settings below will affect all stories, collections, and themes within your organization

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StoryMaps - Collections

StoryMaps - Community

StoryMaps - Contact

StoryMaps - Explore

StoryMaps - Feed

StoryMaps - Feedback

StoryMaps - Frames

StoryMaps - Get Started

StoryMaps - Learn

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StoryMaps - Stories

StoryMaps - Themes

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Features

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Create all of the stories and collections you want

Unlimited creation

Open access to all layouts and build your own themes

Endless customization

Thematic maps, 3D map tours, data importing

Advanced mapping

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Every story has a place

Add context to your content easily with beautiful layouts and immersive experiences made in minutes. You can choose what to use from videos, images, audio clips and even embeds. StoryMaps comes equipped with everything you need to ensure your story looks great.

Interactive digital experiences

Transport your readers to any place at any time. With StoryMaps, you get access to the world’s leading mapping technology to guide your readers to your favorite places, illustrate trends or even take them on an interactive tour.

Whether you’re on the couch or at the beach, you can connect with other authors and explore new destinations through the StoryMaps mobile app

Great storytelling wherever you are

Add another dimension to your map tours for an extra storytelling punch

What it is, why you need it, and how to do it well

Get the latest updates from the StoryMaps team

Simple tips, tricks, and hacks to get the most out of the builder

Three different approaches to bundling related stories

What’s in a collection?

Connect with other storytellers

Make sure everyone can enjoy your content through smart design choices

Build a connection with your audience by making the personal universal

Maps are great, but interactive charts and tables can propel your story to new heights

Finding happiness with charts

Elevate your story with guidance from the experts

A designers guide to pairing Google Fonts for your next custom theme

Learn to create a cohesive visual narrative using StoryMaps’ built-in filters

Interviewing story subjects can help add authority to a story. These tips will help you prep to get all the info you need.

Let’s go over copyright 101, public domain, Creative Commons, and more

Sharpen your storytelling skills with tips and tricks from the StoryMaps team

Telling a compelling story often starts with great writing, but it doesn’t stop there.

The StoryMaps builder has everything you need to help stage an event, large or small

Easily add polished, data-driven cartography to any story

Find answers to questions like "what’s a story?" and "how do you tell one?"

Sound can add an effective and memorable dimension to your narrative

Maps add depth and context to multimedia storytelling

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Help is right up here

Create short interactive map tours that highlight meaningful landmarks and places with journey frames

Share your adventures with the StoryMaps mobile app

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Easily create stories just like this with StoryMaps

Join the community of StoryMaps authors using cutting-edge technology to bring narratives to life with engaging maps, multimedia, and immersives

Ready to start storytelling?

Easily create interactive content featuring maps, media, and more

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