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How to add custom text elements to custom print layout using WAB print widget?

HelenWhiteley

Hi,

I am trying to create print templates which enable the user to add more text to a layout than just the title and author. I have added elements to the mxd and named them and tried to call them using CustomTextElements, but do not know how to make the text box for the user to enter the text into appear within the print widget. I'm sure I'm missing something simple?! I am using the Web Appbuilder in ArcGIS Portal 10.4 and also have access to WAB for Developers 2.0.

Please help,

Thanks,

Helen

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BugPie

I can't recommend watching this enough!

That link seems to be broken, but here is the video on ESRI YouTube channel.

https://youtu.be/TUHg7rgTRn4

DanShinnick

Superb! Have you experienced any detriment to using the synchronous option?

ChristopherBertrand

I found this video really helpful when it came to creating templates. “Enabling High-Quality Printing in Web Applications”. The demo that leads you through the process for creating and uploading templates starts ~ 24 minutes into the video.

TanuHoque

Michael Deliberato‌,

It is much easier if your parcel map/feature service is time aware. In that case, all you need to do is to add a 'dynamic text element' in your layout template.

here is a screen shot of the dynamic text element.

here is how I inserted it:

Moving to 10.6 or above, we highly recommend everyone to start publishing print services from ArcGIS Pro 2.1 or above due to lots of enhancements both on quality and capability.

Here is how you add a dynamic text to show map's current time on a layout in ArcGIS Pro.

hope this helps.

MichaelDeliberato

Tanu Hoque‌ My organization is currently running server 10.22 with an total architecture upgrade to come within the next three months. We have created a parcel viewer that lets users see their parcel from current date to 1995. is there any way for us to be able dynamically add the date of the map being viewed to the custom print templates. our concern is people using one date and saying its from another? is this possible at 10.22, is it possible with our upcoming upgrade to 10.7 or is this a limitation we may not be able to overcome

MartinWong1

I've been pulling my hair out on this one also and finally figured out my particular problem. I have been publishing the ExportWebMap print service with the Execution Mode on the configuration tab set to Asynchronous (by default or not, I'm not sure.) After changing it to Synchronous (so that it waits for the layout metadata to be returned), the Advanced form on the print tool now shows input boxes for all of my custom text elements. I've been scouring the forums and haven't seen this mentioned anywhere, maybe because it was obvious but it wasn't to me.

TanuHoque

that is correct

HelenWhiteley

Hi Sanne,

Yes, I did. Unfortunately I don't remember how! From what I can see, the trick may have been to make sure the element in the template had a name (text box properties > Size and position > element name)?

SanneMik

HelenWhiteley‌, did you ever get this to work with the custom text in the print-widget in WAB?

Casey_Ragain

Will these links work for ArcGIS for Desktop and Server 10.2.2? Thanks.

MihkelMänna

OK, so if anyone else is wondering how to get dynamic grids with UTM zone change to work with their printing services, the Make Grids and Graticules tool works well for this. Just add the grid feature classes to the MXD in the right order (creating a feature layer for each feature class and setting the representations first). The grid template XML files (with "UTMZoneClipping" in the file name) under the ArcGIS/Desktop10.x/GridTemplates directory are a good place to start.

MihkelMänna

Hi again, Tanu Hoque!

The arcpy based printing solution worked like a charm for my first problem! Thank you! However, I'm still wondering as to what would be the right solution to tackle the multiple coordinate system problem. Should I try exploiting the Make Grids and Graticules tool in my GP script? Any assistance would be very welcome!

Mihkel

MihkelMänna

Thanks for the answer, Tanu!

I previously apparently misread your blog post and understood that the added text would have to be on a separate page. But if the text can also be on the map, I'll certainly give it a try!

TanuHoque

Re: custom text element issue - this is the case where I'd try the arcpy based printing solution that is mentioned as the #2 option in the blog post? did that not work for you?

about your second issue, I'm not quite sure. let me check with folks with expertise in grid & graticule and will get back to you once i find something.

MihkelMänna

Hi, Tanu Hoque!

Your post about printing popups from an web application was very interesting. I also have some problems with printing services and I really hope you can help.

I have been using Custom Text Elements for some time now for printing in my applications but my users want the printing service to be more customizable. At the moment the users insert text via a form for some Custom Text Elements that are printed on the map. The problem is that the space allocated for the text elements is static - sometimes all the text fields are not filled and needed and should therefore be removed from map, sometimes the users need more space for their text than the space I have allocated for the text elements. How could this be solved? I have considered adding these texts as (SVG) text graphics but I'm not sure if it is a reasonable solution.

Another issue I am encountering is adding an appropriate grid background to the map's data frame. At the moment, all of my MXDs are using one specific UTM zone coordinate system, but I'd want the data frame's coordinate system to change according to the printed map geographic extent. As I need to switch primarily between only two coordinate systems (UTM zones), making MXD templates for both of them is simple. The tricky part is that I also have to tackle cases where the printed map's extent falls into both UTM zones (that is, I'd have to display UTM grids on the map in both coordinate systems). How could this be solved?

I would be extremely thankful if you could guide me in a right direction with either or both these problems.

Mihkel

TanuHoque

a blog article has recently been posted to walk thru the process of creating and using customTextElement. here is the link Printing Popups from Web Application | ArcGIS Blog. i hope this will help.

LeoLadefian5

How does one create a custom text element in their layout? This is what I'm stuck on, for instance, a "Comments" field as user input. Do I use custom dynamic text?

TanuHoque

FYI: for those who want to use GeLayouttTemplatesInfo tool but haven't been able to move to 10.4, you can download the script from https://github.com/arcpy/sample-gp-tools/tree/master/GetLayoutTemplatesInfo

once you copy it on your local machine, follow the steps from Tutorial: Publishing additional services for printing—Documentation | ArcGIS for Server --- only thing is that instead of using the GetLayoutTemplatesInfo from the system toolset, use the one you downloaded.

TanuHoque

Jon,

My apologies, I'm afraid I'm not quite clear on your first issue...

to publish a printing service with custom templates, steps are:

- open the Export Web Map tool in Desktop,

- choose the folder with your custom templates

- execute the tool

- publish the result

the service will use templates from the folder you chose in step#2.

is this not working for you?

Or set up an equivalent path on the desktop machine so we can get a GP result that can be published.

sorry, i can't follow this..

The script wrapper is needed anyway as a workaround to a bug where the export image filename is not returned. I've raised an issue with Esri UK support - CAS-17137-N6H0T4: Arcpy.ExportWebMap_server returns incorrect output file name.

do you happen to have a NIM or BUG id for the above issue? can you pls share that with me. i'm not currently aware of any bug with output file name.

Thanks.

JonMorris2

Ok. Can we still use our custom map templates if just publishing the Export Web Map tool to our server? Sounds like we'd have to manually edit the template path after publishing. Or set up an equivalent path on the desktop machine so we can get a GP result that can be published.

The script wrapper is needed anyway as a workaround to a bug where the export image filename is not returned. I've raised an issue with Esri UK support - CAS-17137-N6H0T4: Arcpy.ExportWebMap_server returns incorrect output file name.

TanuHoque

Jon,

we don't recommend using arcpy.ExportWebMap_server() in scripting environment to create your own arcpy based printing service...

most of the cases you should be fine by creating your printing service from Export Web Map GP tool. In fact, these two approaches would be functionally equivalent. embedding it inside a script is not a good idea.

for some advanced use cases, when you need to create an arcpy based printing service, you should use arcpy.mapping.ConvertWebMapToMapDocument() function... which gives you more control over the output.

JonMorris2

An alternative is to publish a print service on your own server - then you can add custom templates with your company logo and all the elements you like.

The script can be a simple wrapper for the ExportWebMap tool, like this:


  import arcpy


  Web_Map_as_JSON = arcpy.GetParameterAsText(0)
  Format = arcpy.GetParameterAsText(1)
  Layout_Template = arcpy.GetParameterAsText(2)
  Layout_Templates_Folder = r'd:\maps\exportwebmaptemplates'
  Output_File = None


  result = arcpy.ExportWebMap_server(
  Web_Map_as_JSON,
  Output_File,
  Format,
  Layout_Templates_Folder,
  Layout_Template
  )

Then just add the mxd templates to the folder on the server you've named above (in our case d:\maps\exportwebmaptemplates). When you publish the tool to the server, add all the template names to a choice list so users can just pick the one they want.

Parameter: Layout_Template

Data Type: GPString

Display Name Layout Template

Description: TODO

Direction: esriGPParameterDirectionInput

Default Value: MAP_ONLY

Parameter Type: esriGPParameterTypeOptional

Category:

Choice List: [ MAP_ONLY, A3 Landscape, A3 Landscape Legend Only, A3 Landscape No Legend, A3 Portrait, A3 Portrait Legend Only, A3 Portrait No Legend, A4 Landscape, A4 Landscape Legend Only, A4 Landscape No Legend, A4 Portrait, A4 Portrait Legend Only, A4 Portrait No Legend, Letter ANSI A Landscape, Letter ANSI A Landscape Legend Only, Letter ANSI A Landscape No Legend, Letter ANSI A Portrait, Letter ANSI A Portrait Legend Only, Letter ANSI A Portrait No Legend, Tabloid ANSI B Landscape, Tabloid ANSI B Landscape Legend Only, Tabloid ANSI B Landscape No Legend, Tabloid ANSI B Portrait, Tabloid ANSI B Portrait Legend Only, Tabloid ANSI B Portrait No Legend ]

TanuHoque

Thanks Michael Miller. I'm glad i was able to help.

Helen Whiteley, it is step# 8 in "Preparing and publishing the service" section in that help that describe how to add that additional task to the printing service in 10.4. WAB printing widget (though i'm not sure which version) looks for that GetLayoutTemplateInfo task in the printing service; if it finds it, it uses metadata from each layout and show text boxes to allow you set values for your custom text elements.

This is something new in 10.4.

Hope this helps.

MichaelMiller2

At the Developer Conference this year I saw a presentation on this very subject. One of the presenters was Tanu Hoque and he was an enormous help via email. Maybe try connecting with him to sort it all out.

Question, are you running server 10.4? I believe if it's an earlier version of server there are additional steps that need to be taken.

Below is the info Tanu forwarded to me:

You need to create a script tool with following parameters

nb: the name of the first parameter shouldn't matter.

Again, this script/task only to provide metadata information for each layout templates… which helps Web App Builder’s print widget to show those options in it.

This requires running a python file to generate the script tool and I do not see a way to attach the script (GetLayoutTemplateInfo.py).

HelenWhiteley

Thanks Michael,

That's exactly the tutorial I used to publish my print services and custom templates. However, I need more information on the custom text elements, unless I'm missing something, this tutorial doesn't cover this?

Helen

MichaelMiller2

Helen,

Check out this link to Publishing Additional Services for Printing. It's a tutorial that will walk you through the steps to get set up allowing users to customize the custom text elements of their web maps.

Michael

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