Navigating in the data frame and working with its layers You can move layers from one data frame to another by selecting them and then dragging them into the target data frame. When you have more than one data frame and add layers to the map, they're added to the active data frame. To make a data frame active, right-click on its name in the table of contents and select Activate. The active data frame name is shown in bold in the table of contents. When your map document contains more than one data frame, you will have one that is the active data frame that is, the one you are actively working with. When a new data frame is added in ArcMap, it appears in the table of contents and is highlighted as the active data frame. You can't delete the last data frame on a map. In data view, the display window is the data frame-showing the map layers of the active data frame drawn according to their order in the table of contents from bottom to top.Ī map must have at least one data frame. When you create a map, it contains a default data frame listed in the table of contents as Layers (you can rename it if you want). You work with features, rasters, and layers within the data frame in ground units (using feet, meters, and so on). The table of contents lists the drawing order of each layer. The table of contents on the left side of the map window shows the list of layers in the data frame.Įach layer in the data frame is used to display information from a dataset (such as a feature class or an image file). The data frame displays a collection of layers drawn in a particular order for a given map extent and map projection. Navigating in the data frame and working with its layers.