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Add the climb to a route poster

The Elevation Profile element draws the hills of a route as a chart. It follows a Route Map layer, so it updates by itself when a customer uploads their own track.

Smart Elements·Updated September 9, 2026·2 min read·intermediate

The Elevation Profile element draws a route’s climb as a chart: distance along the bottom, height up the side. On a cycling or trail-running poster it says something the map alone cannot, which is how hard the day was.

It is the one smart element that has no data of its own. It reads a Route Map layer in the same design, which is what makes it worth using: when a customer uploads their own GPX, the map and the chart both change.

Add a route map first

An elevation profile with nothing to follow draws nothing. Add a Route Map and give it a track before you add the chart.

Add the element

Open Elements and click the Elevation Profile tile.

DashboardAn elevation profile on the canvas with its settings panel open, showing a Linked route section with a picker for choosing which route map the chart follows
A new elevation profile, before it is linked to a route.

Choose the route it follows

Under Linked route, pick the route map layer. The chart draws that route’s climb straight away.

If the design has no route map yet, the panel says so and tells you to add one. If you later delete the route map, the chart reports Linked route removed rather than quietly drawing an old curve.

Shape the chart

DashboardEarlier Style tab of the Elevation Profile panel, with controls for chart style, fill colour, line colour, line width, axis and smoothing
Earlier layout. These controls are now the Look section of the Design tab: area or line, then colours, then how much the curve is smoothed.
  • Chart switches between Area and Line. An area fills under the curve and reads as a solid shape from a distance. A line is quieter and sits better under a map.
  • The Fill and Line swatches set the colours, and Line width the thickness. Matching the line colour to the route line on the map above it ties the two together.
  • The Axis switch draws the scale. While it is on, an Axis swatch joins the colours so you can tone it down.
  • Smoothing, under More, averages the curve. At 0 every recorded point is drawn, including the noise a GPS makes when it loses signal in a valley. Higher values average more points together, so the shape of the climb survives and the jitter goes.

Shoppers do not change the chart itself

Its Personalize tab only explains why, and that is deliberate, not an omission. The chart has nothing of its own for a shopper to choose: it follows the route map, and the route map is where you decide whether the customer may upload their own track. Switch on Upload a route there, under What customers can change, and this chart redraws with their climb.

Next

Back to Route Map for the track itself, or caption tokens to print the total climb as text beside the chart.

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