Section One: Getting Started

Part Two: MapInfo Basics

The MapInfo window

Open MapInfo Professional version 7.5 now: Start > Programs > MapInfo > MapInfo Professional 7.5

MapInfo Screen

If you are using the free trial version, a dialog box will appear asking you to enter 'Enter Licence Key' if you have purchased the full version of MapInfo, in which case enter the key and click Update Licence Now. Alternatively, click Continue Trial Period.

A dialog box will appear inviting you to open either a table or a workspace. For now, click cancel. Take a look at the MapInfo window.

MapInfo has a title bar including minimise, restore or maximise, and close buttons.

Below the title bar is the menu bar with the following menus.

File: Menu commands which are normally found in the file menu of other applications are also found here for MapInfo.
Edit: This is also the case for the Edit menu.
Tools: The Tools menu is an important feature of MapInfo. It is from here that you may run programs from MapInfo's programming language, MapBasic (Section Four, Part Three), load new tools, launch the Mapping Wizard Tool, view the Metadata (data about the data, such as its source) and access the Universal Translator (Section Three, Part Four).
Objects: The Objects menu does not by default have any active items, and is used only for advanced tasks.
Query: The Query menu allows the selection of certain entities by a number of methods (Section Four, Part One).
Table: The Table menu allows manipulation of data tables, such as adding new columns (Section Two, Part Three), importing and exporting tables, and geocoding.
Options: The Options menu allows the user to alter aesthetic aspects of their maps, such as line and symbol styles.
Window: The Window menu is used to create new windows of different types, and arrange existing windows on the screen.
Help: Opens MapInfo's help system. This is a very useful feature, especially its index.

Relevant menu items are discussed in the appropriate sections of the tutorial.

Other menus may appear on the menu bar during your use of MapInfo. For example, should you create a map window (Section Three, Part One), a Map menu will appear.

The main area of the MapInfo window is taken up by the workspace. This area forms a background on which browsers, maps, legends, graphs and layouts may be opened, each in a new window.

Toolbars

Below the menu bar is a toolbar which features the following icons, from left to right:

New Table: Creates a new MapInfo table, and invites you to open either a new browser window or new map window in which to view this.
Open: Opens a MapInfo table.
Open WMS Table: Opens a sample data table from the MapInfo server. WMS stands for Web Mapping Services. It is necessary to be connected to the internet in order for this to work.
Save Table: Saves the table.
Print Window: Prints the active window. This may be a map, legend, browser, layout, graph etc.
Cut: Cuts the selected object or area
Copy: Copies the selected object or area.
Paste: Pastes objects or areas which have been cut or copied.
Undo: Undoes the last action performed, where possible.
New Browser: Creates a new browser window.
New Mapper: Creates a new map window.
New Grapher: Creates a new graph window.
New Layout: Creates a new layout window.
New Redistricter: Creates a new redistrict window.
Help: Another way to open MapInfo's Help system.

These buttons duplicate commonly used menu items.

MapInfo also has floating toolbars. The Main and Drawing toolbars appear by default when MapInfo is opened. Other toolbars may be added using the Toolbars command in the Options menu (Options > Toolbars). The standard toolbar may be dragged downwards to form a floating toolbar. Floating toolbars may be dragged upwards to sit beneath the menu bar.

	The main toolbar has selection tools (Section Four, Part One), view tools such as zoom in, zoom out, and pan, layer management tools (Section Three, Part One), and other tools such as a meaurement tool, statistics tool and legend control tools (Section Three, Part One).
	The drawing toolbar contains tools for drawing new line and region entities, and for other features such as adding text.
	The tools toolbar by default includes tools such as Run MapBasic program (also accessed by Tools > Run MapBasic Program, discussed in Section Four, Part Three, and Run Mapping Wizard Tool (Tools > Mapping Wizard Tool > Run Mapping Wizard Tool). However, more tools may be added to this toolbar using Tools > Tool Manager, discussed in Section Three, Part Three. Go to Mapping Wizard Tool
	DBMS stands for Database Management System. The DBMS toolbar allows tables external to MapInfo to be linked seamlessly into MapInfo so that they may be manipulated using MapInfo's controls. This toolbar is not often used, but it is an important feature to be aware of.

However, before we can play with any of these features, we must first import some data.

On to Section Two: Importing Data

Section One
MapInfo Tutorial Home