Looking to add a legends using arcpy

Question

Hi, I am trying to add a legend to a map layout using arcpy. after going through the tutorials I have used the following code : import arcpy mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument(r"C:\Project\Project.mxd") df = arcpy.mapping.ListDataFrames(mxd)[0] lyrFile = arcpy.mapping.Layer(r"C:\Project\Data\Rivers.lyr") arcpy.mapping.AddLayer(df, lyrFile, "TOP") styleItem = arcpy.mapping.ListStyleItems("USER_STYLE", "Legend Items", "NewDefaultLegendStyle")[0] legend = arcpy.mapping.ListLayoutElements(mxd, "LEGEND_ELEMENT")[0] legend.updateItem(lyrFile, styleItem) del mxd but everytime I run this code I found an error : Runtime error Traceback (most recent call last): File "", line 1, in AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'updateItem' Kindly help to resolve this. I am new to map automation and using Python. Thanks Swati

AlexCarrier2 · Answer

Can you control font size/style in a legend with arcpy?

JeffreyBarrette · Answer

I can't see the error in your code.  Are you running this from ArcMap?

You can NOT create new legends with arcpy.mapping.  You can only alter existing legends on a page layout.  If you add layers to a data frame, those layers can automatically be added to the legend.  You can control column count, positioning, etc

Jeff

swatisaini · Answer

Hi, Yes, the code is same as is given in the Arcgis 10.1 Help as a sample code and i tired running this after creating a same folder ,Layer and mxd.But After i ran this code it gave me the following error: Runtime error Traceback (most recent call last): File "", line 1, in AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'updateItem' Can;t figure out what I am doing wrong. However, my aim is to add legend to the map (around 50 maps) and the legend is different for each of the map.Kindly tell me what should i do to automate this. Is there a way to save a legend file , so that we can add it using arcpy..??? Thanks, Swati