Persist Label properties when creating label classes from Symbology (Including Symbol and Placement Properties and scale ranges)

Sian_Doherty_GHD

When using Create label classes from symbology in ArcGIS Pro, the existing label configuration should be preserved, with only the text colour taken from the symbology class.

At present, even after carefully configuring labeling (e.g. font type, font size, halo, offsets, callouts, scale ranges, repeat labels, remove duplicate labels, placement rules), creating label classes from symbology resets labels back to defaults (e.g. Tahoma 10, default placement and scales). This requires all label properties to be reconfigured for every class.

Requested behaviour

Allow users to:

• Configure labeling once
• Then create label classes from symbology where:
  • The symbology colour is applied as the label text colour
  • All other label properties remain exactly as configured, including:
    • font type and size (e.g. Arial 8 pt)
    • halo colour and width
    • offsets and placement
    • callouts
    • repeat / remove duplicate labels
    • minimum and maximum scale ranges (this is already possible as a tickbox in the create label classes from symbology dialog)

Creating label classes from symbology should not reset label symbols, placement, or scale settings, but should only introduce colour-based classes.

Why this matters

Label configuration is often more time‑consuming than symbology. Resetting fonts, halos, placement, and scale ranges each time label classes are generated significantly slows down cartographic and production workflows, particularly where layers are frequently regenerated.

Jesse Wickizer

It's a good suggestion, and a solution would have to take into account which label class would be used as the 'template' label class for the newly created label classes from the Create label classes from symbology function. 

What I do in this case is check the Append to current label classes box to preserve my existing label classes that I've already configured.

Then once the new label classes have been added, I copy and paste label class properties to the new label classes:

1. Change the Contents pane to list by labeling to view all the label classes.

2. Right-click the label class with the preconfigured properties.

3. Select one or more of the new label classes, right-click and choose Paste > and then select any of the sub-sets of properties to paste. Don't paste All properties or you'll overwrite the SQL Query that was created when the new label classes were imported.