Custom symbology - how to share symbols I built with other users in my office

Question

Hello,
I created some symbols and by default they are stored in my User.style folder but I want others in my office to be able to see and 
use these labels too. How or where can I save these symbols so that when someone else in the office wants to use them, they can
find them in their Symbol Selector?

NidhinKarthikeyan · Answer

http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.2/index.html#//00s60000000r000000

NeoGeo · Answer

I assume you know that under Customize > Style Manager that you can both create new styles and import styles from anywhere on the network including network shares (the "Add Style to List" button).

If you don't want them to have to import the style themselves and you have network administrator access, you could probably just write a simple python script that copies your new style (which you can create in Style Manager), to c:\program files (x86)\ArcGIS\Desktop10.2\Styles and the users would see it when they click the More Styles button when selecting their styles in ArcMap.  Note that the path would change depending on what version of ArcGIS you guys are using since obviously it would not say 10.2 if you are running 10.1, and the program files (x86) part could change depending on what operating system you are using.

I wrote a quick Python script for you to show you how you could copy it and check different folders to see if the target folder exists before copying.  I put in one path from  ArcGIS Desktop on 64bit server 2008 and one from an imaginary Vista Desktop install.  Just change the paths and style name in the code.  You could have your Network Administrator make this execute once on all of your machines.import os
import sys
import shutil

# Put the network share where the source style is found here:
# Note do not remove the r in front of the quotes
# StylePath=r"\servername\share\folder\file.ext"
StylePath=r"\nglaa0-cbem-ag1\software"

# Put the name of the style here
StyleName="test1.style"

Server2008OutPath=r"C:\Program Files (x86)\ArcGIS\Desktop10.2\Styles"
VistaOutPath=r"C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\Desktop10.2\Styles"

if os.path.isdir(Server2008OutPath):
    try:
        print "Copying %s" % StyleName 
        shutil.copyfile(os.path.join(StylePath,StyleName),os.path.join(Server2008OutPath,StyleName))
    except:
        print "Error copying"
        
elif os.path.isdir(VistaOutPath):
    try:
        print "Copying %s" % StyleName 
        shutil.copyfile(os.path.join(StylePath,StyleName),os.path.join(VistaOutPath,StyleName))
    except:
        print "Error copying"
else:
    print "Could not find ArcGIS style folder"

EricNorman · Answer

Hello Natalie,

Did you ever find an answer to your question? Thank you!