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Create your first guided tour in ArcGIS StoryMaps
Follow a short tutorial to learn the ins and outs of this immersive block
One of the most popular blocks in ArcGIS StoryMaps , guided tour lets you lead your audience through a curated set of places, one tour stop at a time. This immersive block was added to the builder as part of the January 2020 release that brought a variety of new features to ArcGIS StoryMaps, and has received a number of enhancements since then.
To learn more about what guided tour is and when it might be helpful for your storytelling efforts, be sure to check out this accompanying article that covers all those details. Then peruse this 12-step tutorial to see how easy it is to configure, modify, and perfect guided tours in your own narratives. If you'd like, you can even jump into the story builder to follow along as we go.
Step 1: Add a map tour block and choose a creation workflow
To get started, enter the story builder and open the block palette by clicking (+) and selecting Map tour from the list of available options.
From here, you'll need to make a few decisions about your tour. The first is deciding how to create and populate your tour block.
The top option inserts an empty block, from which you can add individual tour points one by one. The second option allows you to upload a bunch of images at once; each image is used to generate a unique tour place (which can later be added to or edited, if need be).
A third choice is to have an ArcGIS Online feature service populate a map tour using point data and its associated attributes. Detailed instructions for this workflow can be found in a separate tutorial .
For now, we'll focus on the batch image-upload workflow, so go ahead and select the Yes, upload photos option. If you'd prefer to start with an empty tour, you can skip ahead to step 4, but note that this initial decision point is the only opportunity you'll have to upload photos and create tour points in bulk.
Tip: You can add a guided tour anywhere in your story, and can include more than one if you're so inclined.
Step 2: Add tour images
On this screen, you can choose the images that will generate your tour points. Selecting Browse your files will open a file picker with which you can locate image files on your computer. Alternatively, you can drag and drop files from a Finder or File Explorer window directly into the designated area.
Tip: Keep in mind that images files must be in .jpg, .png, .gif, or .svg formats.
Step 3: Adjust selection and reorder tour images
Once you've located and added your image files, you can quickly preview and refine your selection. Since map tour blocks can contain up to 100 tour points, only the first 100 images in your upload will be automatically selected for inclusion—remember, each image will generate a unique tour point.
If you've uploaded more than 100 images or want to exclude some of the images from becoming their own tour point, you can use the checkbox in the upper left-hand corner of each image's preview thumbnail to deselect it or select unselected images. You can also reorder your images by dragging and dropping to determine their initial order within the tour. To swap out the images entirely, use the back button (left-facing arrow) in the top left corner to return to the file picker page.
Some of your image previews may have a small pin icon in the upper right-hand corner; this indicates that the image file contains geographic coordinates and that the resulting tour point will be positioned automatically on the map based on those coordinates. You can manually reposition such points later, if desired (that process is covered in Step 7).
Once you're satisfied with your image selection and order, click the Create tour button in the lower right to upload your photos and launch the tour builder. If you've selected many images, it make take a few seconds for everything to upload; a green progress bar will let you know everything is moving along smoothly.
Step 4: Choose your tour layout
Whether you're arriving at this point via the batch upload workflow demonstrated in the previous steps or if you opted to start your tour from a blank slate (as the accompanying animation illustrates), your next move is to decide which map tour type and layout to use.
Guided tour is one of two different types of map tour; the other is explorer tour. To learn more about the differences between guided and explorer tours, give this blog post a read. This tutorial, of course, will pertain to guided tour, so we'll focus on the top two options.
Now you must decide between either a map focused or media focused layout for your guided tour. Each one will highlight your content differently, which we'll get into in a bit. For now, let's go with Media focused.
Tip: Unsure about which tour type and layout is best for your needs? Don't sweat it—you can always change the layout later, and you can even seamlessly switch between guided and explorer tours without losing any information or media—more on this in Step 10.
Step 5: Add some text
The following steps will walk through the process of putting together a guided tour from the perspective of someone who had started with a blank tour, but the mechanisms described work exactly the same to modify and add to tours that were pre-populated using the batch upload tool.
First, know that a guided tour point consists of three main components:
- A narrative panel for a title and description
- A media panel for images or videos of each place
- A map panel to locate that particular place
Combined, these three elements constitute a slide, and you add additional slides to include more tour stops.
Click into Slide title (optional) and start typing to add a title. You can do the same with Continue your story (optional) to add a description. Neither of these fields are required—leaving one field blank will simply hide it from your readers.
Tip: You can also add buttons and audio clips to the narrative panel of a guided tour point. While lists don't appear in the text editing toolbar, you can incorporate those too, using the keyboard shortcuts * for a bulleted list and 1. for a numbered list.
Step 6: Upload your media
There's no better way to help your audience get to know a place than by showing them what it looks like, so let's add some photos and a video to our first location.
Click Add image or video and navigate to the media you'd like to include, then upload it into your story. Note that if you upload a photo that has geographic data ascribed to it—for instance, most photos taken with a smartphone—that location will automatically be selected as the tour point for that slide.
Once your media loads you'll notice several icons appear atop it. To add more media to that tour stop, click Add media and upload your next photo or video. You can add up to five media items per tour point. If you'd like to change the order in which they appear, click Reorder media and drag the thumbnails that appear into your desired order, then click Save.
Tip: Click Properties to adjust the focal point for an image, or choose Fit if you'd like the entire image to be visible with a background color filling the negative space in the media panel.
Step 7: Locate your tour stop
When you're ready to situate your place of interest on the map (and the media you uploaded didn't already have locational data to pull from), click Add location at the bottom of the narrative panel. This opens a lightweight map editor onto which you drop the point for this particular stop on your tour.
Pan and/or zoom to your desired location (or use the search field if you want the map to zip right there) then click to add your point. Once it's been added, you can click and drag to reposition it as needed (you can manually reposition points that were automatically placed via locational data, too).
Tip: You can also add tour stops directly from the map search; see the video below for an example.
Here you also have control over the map's scale for each point. By default, the zoom level for every point will reflect the overall tour's zoom level setting (see the next step for more on that). To override that, select Use the current zoom level and zoom in or out to the desired scale.
Note: You can pan the map around in the map editor, but when viewing the tour the map will automatically center the active point in the map panel.
Step 8: Keep adding tour points and reorder them
Now that you know the basics for configuring individual stops on your tour, click (+) to add additional slides and fill out the content for each one.
As you build out your tour, use the slide panel at the bottom of the builder to manage your slides. You can duplicate or delete a slide with the ... menu on a specific slide, or click and drag a slide thumbnail to reorder your list of places (when you do this, the numbers for your tour points will update automatically).
Tip: You can add as many as 100 stops to a single tour. Some stories will be made for longer tours, like this fun examination of some of the largest airports in the United States. Others, meanwhile, can use a series of short tours to spotlight examples or case studies, as is the case in this discussion of World Heritage Sites.
Step 9: Explore the tour options
A few options exist to Adjust map appearance in your guided tour—click the Edit button near the top of the tour block to access them.
At the top of the list are two big buttons that determine whether your map tour will present in the normal, two-dimensional way, or take the appearance of a 3D scene. While 3D tours can be cool, the effect works much better with certain kinds of tours and places than others, so be judicious in how you employ that option; this story offers a nuanced discussion of when to use 3D maps.
Just below that, you'll see a couple of toggle buttons that are off to start with. The first allows viewers on small screens (tablets, smartphones, etc.) to see their own location in the tour map. The second turns on a series of progress lines that connects each point in the tour. The lines thicken and brighten as the reader gets to each point, while the lines connecting the points yet to come remain more faint.
Tip: Progress lines work best for tours with points that convey a sequential order—like, say, an itinerary—and don’t make as much sense for tours that are more of a collection of separate examples. They also work best when the points are arranged geographically so that the progress lines don’t tangle too much and cause a visually messy situation.
Step 10: Style the map
Staying in the map options, the next item down the list is the basemap picker. Similar to the full map designer for express maps , you can choose from one of the recommended basemaps for each story theme , or from a wider catalog of standard basemaps. Or, you can even opt to bring in a custom web map—click Browse more maps at the bottom of the basemap picker to access your own library of web maps, maps you've favorited, your organization's maps, and maps produced by the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World maps, any of which can be brought into a guided tour (note that for any of these, pop-ups will be disabled—this ability is ideal for showing static features like a driving or hiking route).
You also have control over the color for the guided tour points. The color picker in the settings panel will display three theme-based color options (four, if you're using a story theme with a custom accent color specified) right off the bat. In addition, you can input a hex color value right there in the color picker that will apply just to that guided tour's points.
Finally, you can establish which zoom level will serve as the default for all tour points. Automatic will select the closest-in level that allows all points to be visible throughout the tour. Or, you can select Custom and choose your desired scale from the dropdown menu.
Once your map is styled to your liking, click Done to save your changes.
Step 11: Add alt text
It's very important that you add alternative text (or alt text, for short) to all media—including maps—in a story. You can add alt text easily in ArcGIS StoryMaps, usually through the media Options, represented by the little gear icon.
Alt text is a description of the media that will display if the media fails to load, and will also be read by assistive technologies like screen readers. For more insight into how to write effective alt text, you can read that section of our guide to creating accessible stories.
For guided tours, you can add alt text to each media component within the tour, but you can also give the entire tour an alt text description, via the tour Options. Here, you might want to briefly explain what the purpose of the map tour is (e.g. "A series of my favorite restaurants").
Step 12: Adjust the numbering scheme and change the tour layout
When it comes to the numbering of guided tour points, you aren't confined by the boring old 1, 2, 3. Enter the Options menu on the left side of the slide panel and you'll see a menu item for Change numbering. Click that to bring up the numbering options modal. First you'll be able to select between points that count up in ascending order, or having them count down, in descending order. Below that is a field where you can enter a desired starting number for a tour, up through three digits (what you enter will still be the lowest number in the tour if descending order is selected).
If you're having second thoughts about your tour layout altogether, you can also use the Options menu to Change layout. You can go back and forth between the two guided tour layouts (map-focused or media-focused) as many times as it takes to find the one you like best for your story. You can even toggle your tour between guided and explorer without losing any content.
Tip: Use the map-focused layout if you want to emphasize the geographic relationship between your different tour stops. If instead you want readers to be drawn in by the visuals that represent each stop, opt for the media-focused layout.
Finally, you can also use the Options menu to delete the entire tour, or to create an identical copy of it. Some uses for duplicating a map tour block are to break a longer tour into smaller parts, or to experiment with map styles or point zoom levels.
Step 13: Preview your work
Last but not least, it's a good idea to preview your tour and double-check that everything is matching your expectations across different screen sizes.
In the builder header, click Preview to view your story as a reader would see the published version. Use the device icons in the preview header to get a sense of how your tour content will rearrange for readers on tablets or mobile phones.
One thing to note is that—for the sake of creating an optimal reading experience—both tour layouts have the same mobile reading experience with the map docked at the top of the screen while images and text for each point scroll by.
Tip: Be sure to evaluate the length of your descriptions for each stop on your tour. Guided tour narrative panels can accommodate a lot of text, but that doesn't mean writing paragraphs upon paragraphs for each place will result in a great experience for your audience. If you find you have a lot you need to say, tour might not be the right block for that part of your story.
So there you have it, all the basics of working with guided tour in ArcGIS StoryMaps. Take it for a spin yourself and be sure to let us know what you think , and share your completed stories with us on Twitter at @ArcGIS StoryMaps .
Looking for more resources?
We have lots of articles, tutorials, videos, and more available on our website. It's a great repository for anyone looking to take their ArcGIS StoryMaps skills to the next level.