There is no denying that there is a lot of symbols available in CC3+, especially if you have several of the various add-ons and annuals. And at times, it can be hard to find what you want.

In CC3+, all symbols are arranged in symbol catalogs, and symbol catalogs are all associated with a map style. For example, the Mike Schley overland style have it’s own set of symbol catalogs, while the CC3 Standard overland style have a different set of symbol catalogs. CC3+ is set up this way to make it easy to find and use the symbols that belong to the current style, you should be able to access them simply by hitting the various symbol catalog buttons immediately above the mapping window. Symbols are deliberately divided into different styles because these symbols are drawn by multiple artists using multiple drawing styles, and very often don’t look all that good if you try to mix them on the same map. Just look at the mountains above. They all look good when used in the map style they belong to, but mixing them makes little sense. This is why when you click the mountains catalog button in CC3+ you will be presented with a symbol catalog containing symbols that fit your current map style instead of just the same set of mountains always.

Sometimes however, you do want to use symbols not part of your current style. Some styles are more compatible with each other than others, so there are certainly cases where a symbol from another style may look good. Generally in CC3+, you can always browse for any symbol catalog you want by hitting the Open Symbol Catalog button right above the symbol catalog and look for the right symbol catalog (They’re all found in subfolders under the Symbols folder in the CC3+ data directory). If you want to use many symbols from other styles however, this can lead to a lot of clicking and browsing, making creating your own symbol catalog a good idea. A custom symbol catalog gives you easy access to the symbols you have included in it, without impacting the official catalogs.

There are several ways of making your own symbol catalog, but today, we’ll stick to a way that is quick and easy when you want to make a symbol catalog with various additional symbols from other styles you frequently use. Note that this procedure is best for a limited amount of symbols, if you want access to the complete set of symbols from another style easily, it is better to learn how to use symbol style filters, which I discuss in Using Multiple Symbol Styles.

• Start by just creating a new map in your desired “main” style, for example Mike Schley Overland. Just a blank map, you don’t need to map anything.
• Now, use the Open Symbol Catalog button to browse for a symbol catalog with the symbols you want to add. This should be a symbol catalog with symbols from another style, as you already have easy access to all the Mike Schley Overland symbols in this map (of course, if you really want, you can still put those into this catalog). Click all the symbols in the symbol catalog that you want to include in your new custom catalog. You don’t actually need to place them in the map, simply clicking on them is enough, but if you want a visual indication of which symbols you have added, feel free to place them in the map too. Remember that if the symbol catalog is set up with collections, you need to remember to expand the collections to be able to click all the symbols.
• Just repeat the step above for each symbol catalog that contains symbols you wish to add.
• Once you have added all the symbols you want, you can pick Symbol Manager from the Symbols menu to see the list of symbols of symbols used in the current map. From this dialog, simply select all the symbols you wish to include in your new symbol catalog, and hit the Save as Catalog button. Note that this dialog uses the standard Windows multi-select method, i.e you can either click one symbol to select it, then hold down the control key while clicking on additional symbols to add/remove them from the selection, or to quickly select a long list, click on the first symbol in the list, then scroll down to the bottom, hold down shift, and click on the last one.
• Where you save that catalog does not matter from a technical perspective, it will work no matter where it is placed, because it relies on the art files in your CC3+ directory. It will even work on other computers or for other people, as long as that computer have the same add-ons installed as those used in the catalog. The most common place to store catalogs is inside the CC3+ data directory though; I recommend creating your own folder under @Symbols to keep these in. Remember, you will only need the catalog file you just saved (.fsc file), you do not need to move/copy any of the art files (.png).

Now you can easily use the Open Symbol Catalog button and open your custom catalog, and you have everything in one place instead of jumping back and forth between catalogs. You can even add a toolbar button for it, see Adding Toolbar Buttons.

Of course, there is a final question once you have made this catalog, how to update it, adding and removing and maybe rearranging symbols?

Well, that part is also pretty easy. What you need to do is to open the symbol catalog as a map instead of as a symbol catalog in the symbol catalog window. You can do this by picking Open from the File menu to get to CC3+’s regular open dialog. Now, near the bottom there is a dropdown-selector labeled “Files of Type”. Simply change this from the default (CC3+ FCW Drawing) to CC3+ FSC Symbol Catalog. This changes the filter in the dialog to show symbol catalogs instead of maps. Now just browse to where the symbol catalog is stored, pick and open it. Note that once opened, the mapping window will be plain white, no content, this is normal, and the symbol catalog window will still display the last symbol catalog you had open. Since we opened it as a map, the symbol catalog window won’t display the symbols from it (But you can tell it to by clicking the Symbols in Map button to show the symbol in the current map instead of the loaded symbol catalog). But, at this point, you can treat it just like the new map we created at the start of the instructions above, and just opening various symbol catalogs and clicking on symbols to add them to the catalog. However, since we now have the actual symbol catalog open, you can simply hit the regular save button to save your changes, no need to use the save as catalog button we used earlier, this is just for creating the symbol catalog for the first time.

If you want to delete or rearrange symbols, then just open the symbol manager, pick the symbol to manage, and hit Delete to remove it from the symbol catalog, or use the Move Up/Move Down buttons to rearrange the catalog. CC3+ do have tool for more efficient mass-rearranging, but explaining these now is a bit out of scope for this blog article. They are explained in the Tome of Ultimate Mapping. Once you are done, just as with adding symbols described above, close the symbol manager and use the regular save button to save the changes.

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