Create your first collection with ArcGIS StoryMaps

Click + New collection to launch the builder. You can then add in a title, subtitle, byline, and description just by clicking and typing in each of these fields. For the description, you can format the text a bit, color it, or add hyperlinks and lists. Feel free to change these at any time.

The publishing state badge and autosave status are also up in the collection header—these should look familiar if you've made a story in ArcGIS StoryMaps before.

Click Add to collection to begin bringing in the content you want to share. That button will first expand into a drop-down menu. For now, select ArcGIS content. When the content browser opens it will look similar to the page where you manage your stories.

Find the stories you want to include by browsing or searching the relevant tabs, and click (+) on the story card to select them.

Tip: You can include as many as 60 items in a single collection; there is a counter at the bottom that helps you keep track of how many you have selected currently.

In addition to stories made with ArcGIS StoryMaps, you can also add other ArcGIS apps or any files saved in your ArcGIS account to your collection.

Use the Apps and Files filters under the primary filtering tabs to switch from viewing StoryMaps stories to other content in these same categories. Then begin selecting items to include just as you did with stories.

When you've selected all your desired content, click Done to import these items. (Or click Clear selection to start over.)

Note: In this example I've added an image, but you can also add PDFs, Survey123 forms, and content made with ArcGIS Experience Builder, Hub, Insights, ArcGIS Dashboards, Web AppBuilder, and other configurable apps.

Now let's return to that other option under the Add to collection button: Embed. Selecting this allows you to add virtually any embeddable content from anywhere on the web to your collection.

Simply input a URL or iframe code into the Add web content modal, click Add, and that content will go straight into the collection.

Note: Should you attempt to add content that isn't able to be embedded, an error message will appear in the Add web content modal alerting you that the content is not supported.

Each item you've added to your collection will appear as a thumbnail in a nice, orderly grid, with the most recent addition initially getting placed at the end of the collection. If you'd like to re-order the items, click and drag the grid thumbnails around until you're satisfied. Nothing too complicated there.

You can also change how the item title and thumbnail appear in this collection (any edits you make here will not affect the original item, just how it displays in this particular collection). Hover over the thumbnail of whatever item you want to customize and click the gear, then add a custom title or image.

Note: In Custom item details, you can even hide a story's cover so it doesn't appear when viewed in a collection.

For these next few steps, we'll dive into the Design panel (found in the app header) and examine the options to adjust your collection's look and feel, starting with the three Layout choices for how the collection's overview page will appear. Those choices are:

• Grid: The default view, where each row in the collection contains three items (two on smaller screens) with a thumbnail image and title below.
• Magazine: This option magnifies the card for the first item in the collection, with the subsequent items lining up two-by-two below it.
• Journal: This widens each individual item card so that it occupies its own line of the collection, and also displays story subtitles if applicable.

Tip: For longer collections, it tends to be easier to reorder items in the grid layout first, then switch to magazine or journal if desired.

The next set of design options determines how readers will navigate through the collection via a bar beneath the collection header:

• Compact: This displays the item number currently being viewed, with previous and next arrows for consecutive navigation.
• Tabbed: This option lists the titles of the items in the collection in the navigation banner with the currently viewed item highlighted; clicking on any title will immediately jump to that item.
• Bulleted: This lays out a sequence of numbers in the navigation banner that corresponds to the items in the collection, again with the current item highlighted. You can click on any other number to jump to that item.

After you've made a decision, you can open any item in the collection directly from the builder to see the navigation bar in action and confirm that it's what you were hoping for.

Tip: To learn more about the layout and navigation options, including suggestions about when to use each format, check out this  blog post .

Now it's time to really give your collection a special aesthetic touch by selecting a Theme from the design panel. A theme dictates the collection's color scheme and fonts, and can be used to complement the collection's topic or mood, or to match an organization's branding.

There are six prefabricated themes that can be chosen directly from the design panel. If you've dabbled in  custom themes , you can also click Browse themes to access themes that you've created or that have been shared within your organization.

You can also upload a logo that will appear above the collection's title, either via a custom theme, or directly through the button at the bottom of the design panel. You can even set a URL for the logo to link to when clicked.

Finally, there are a few more options that you may want to consider before publishing your collection. These options can be found in the More actions menu in the header (represented by three dots).

In the Collection settings modal, you can tweak the final display of your collection in a couple more ways. First, you can choose to hide the sharing menu from the published collection. You can also opt to turn off the "Get started" button and the "Collection" label in the collection's overview page.

The collection settings menu is where you can determine language and region-specific settings, too. You can define the intended language of the collection—this does not automatically translate a collection, but it does let web browsers and assistive technologies know what to expect.

Once your collection is looking up to snuff, click Publish in the builder and you'll be taken to the publish options page.

On the left, you can customize the way your collection's thumbnail, title, and description will appear when it's shared on social media, for instance, or found by a search engine. (Note that there's a checkbox below these settings that determines whether these changes will overwrite the collection's item data in ArcGIS Online.)

On the right, you can set the sharing level by choosing whether the collection can be viewed by the general public, your organization, or just yourself. You can also opt to additionally share your collection with a specific ArcGIS group that you have access to.

Once you've determined the appropriate sharing settings, click Publish again to seal the deal.

Tip: If you want a few folks to weigh in on your collection before you share the it widely, set your sharing to Private and give your reviewers access via a group you've set up in ArcGIS Online. If that group has shared update capabilities enabled, the other members of the group will also be able to edit and add to the collection.