Setting up QGIS

Installation

If you haven't already, download and install the appropriate version of QGIS for your machine from http://www.qgis.org/.

Note that new versions of GGIS are usually released every few months - it's not normally necessary to upgrade, although new features are added all the time. New versions are installed as a standalone application, so you can have more than one version installed if you like.

Setting Up

A couple of tips to get started once you have QGIS installed.

• To make the icons smaller and get more screen space, go to Settings > General > Icon size
• To change the language of the UI, go to Settings > Locale, then check Override system locale, and choose the locale to use (you will need to restart QGIS to see the effect)
• Right-click in the toolbar area, and uncheck any of the toolbars you are not using to free even more screen space - for example you won't need Digitizing in this exercise
• Close any panels in the main screen you don't need - most people just use the Layers for normal work