Basic GIS Tools - Standard Tools and Buttons

Zoom tools/buttons
Zoom tools and buttons allow you to change the scale of a map or data frame.  Simply, these tools and buttons change the amount of area that is shown on your map.  There are four of these available on the 'Tools' toolbar (who came up with that toolbar name, anyway?):
Interactive zoom-in tool    allows you to drag a box with your mouse (click on your screen and hold the left mouse-button down while dragging the mouse - you'll see the box) and zoom to that area.  Or click once on a spot and zoom in 25% to that spot.
Interactive zoom-out tool  allows you to drag a box and zoom out on that area (smaller the box, the more you'll zoom out).  Or click once on a spot to zoom out 25% to that spot.
Fixed zoom-in button    zooms in by 25%, the center of the data frame remains the same.
Fixed zoom-out button    zooms out by 25%, the center of the data frame remains the same.

Pan tool
The pan tool    allows you to move to a different area without changing the map scale.  To use it, click on a spot in your map, hold down the mouse button, and drag that spot somewhere else.  If you want to pan east, drag a spot west.  If you want to pan north, drag a spot south.

Previous and next extent buttons
The previous extent button    is like an 'undo' for panning or zooming.  After panning or zooming, this button will take you back to where you previously were.
The next extent button    is like a 'redo' for panning or zooming.  Use this after using the 'previous' extent tool.

Full extent button
The full extent button    will zoom in or out so that you can see all the data in a data frame.  Be careful here - if you have data for the whole state, that's what you will zoom to when you use this button, and it may take a long time to draw.

Identify tool
The identify tool    allows you to click on a feature and see its attributes.

Find tool
The find tool   

is a useful little tool which searches through the attributes of the layers in your data frame and returns whatever attributes match the search text.  It looks like this:


In this example, somebody wants to know what ozone monitors are in the town of Bar Harbor.  Type in 'Bar Harbor' under 'Find' and choose the ozone monitors layer under 'In' (this will limit searching to just the ozone monitors layer).  The results are returned at the bottom.


Here's the neat part, though.  You can right-click any value under 'Value' and have the feature flash, or zoom to the feature, or see the feature's attributes.  Try it and you should see: