idea A measure tool for page units in Layout in ArcGIS Pro Ideas

A measure tool for page units in Layout

ColtonPercy — Fri, 09 Sep 2022 19:11:22 GMT

I have been making poster sized maps for print and I do a lot of manual labeling. It would be nice to have a measure tool to measure page units on the Layout. It is easy to measure distances and areas in map unit on the map frame but sometimes I need to measure the distance between two elements on the layout to determine the real world distance between them.

Re: A measure tool for page units in Layout

feralcatcolonist_old — Fri, 09 Sep 2022 20:02:15 GMT

Yeah I could see this being super useful, especially if it was able to combine some protractor/angles into it as well. I feel like my own cartography is very much manhattan-esque because I don't like to casually do trigonometry whilst map-making -- --I also find myself arbitrarily following the guides at full inches because it is such a pain to do mathematics for the smaller tick-marks. I end up counting them out loud and it feels a lot like counting with my fingers.

Re: A measure tool for page units in Layout

wayfaringrob — Mon, 26 Sep 2022 16:36:11 GMT

Yes, this would be really nice.

To @feralcatcolonist_old's point, I totally get your pain. in the ArcMap days, I would finish up nearly every map in Illustrator, but since Pro makes it a bit easier to work with layouts (and made .ai/.aix all but impossible to use), I find myself doing a lot of my design work in there. Still, it's lacking some fundamental graphic design features, like powerful size & positioning components. As a workaround in your case, I often find myself using lines and other graphics as a 'ruler' or spacer.

Re: A measure tool for page units in Layout

RoseF — Mon, 26 Sep 2022 19:26:49 GMT

This would be something we could use immediately. Again, it's mostly for cartographic purposes (our leader lines shouldn't be more than 1/4" on the printed page) which are hard to "see" in a Layout View.

Re: A measure tool for page units in Layout

Michael_Kraus — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 01:21:41 GMT

It's difficult to use settings that refer to page units - such as duplication distances for labelling or minimum feature size for labelling if there is no measure tool that works on the layout using page units. Can this idea please be considered for implementation?

Re: A measure tool for page units in Layout - Status changed to: Under Consideration

AubriOtis — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 17:33:25 GMT

Re: A measure tool for page units in Layout

NIck_WGNHS — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 18:28:50 GMT

This would be a great time saver for our cartographic workflows. Currently, we have to print the layout and then use a ruler to measure units. It would save a considerable amount of paper, too.

I'd love to see this in an upcoming update.

Re: A measure tool for page units in Layout

wayfaringrob — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 05:59:08 GMT

@NIck_WGNHS my workaround for this is to draw a graphic line or box, rotate if necessary, and drag it to the length/width of the item. Take the reading from the ribbon tab. No printing necessary. You can even use it as a spacer for other items that need to be the same distance apart.

Re: A measure tool for page units in Layout

NIck_WGNHS — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 13:29:39 GMT

@wayfaringrob that's a great tip, I'll give that a shot. Thanks!

Re: A measure tool for page units in Layout

NicolaHowarth — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 20:08:13 GMT

Nearly every map I make, I dream of a tool that does this! Instead, I suffer through adjusting the length units until I'm happy with the result—two hours later (hehe, just kidding).

Re: A measure tool for page units in Layout

AlfredBaldenweck — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 17:35:57 GMT

I'm very much for this idea, but until it gets implemented, here's how I generally rely on the Placement tab to help out with this sort of thing.

I can set each element to be exactly a certain size on the Size section. If I eyeball it, I can get pretty close, but 1.0127 inches is not the same as 1 inch.
1. My personal philosophy is that every scale or element size in a published map should end in either a 0 or a 5. Why publish a map at 1:37,038 (happened yesterday afternoon)?And why suffer through doing the math with a layout element that ends in a 3?
I can then use the anchor boxes on the Position group to help me out.
1. The right-most boundary of this north arrow is at 1 inch from the left of the page, but the leftmost part of the scalebar is at 1.4407 and I need them to actually be 1.75 inches apart so let's set that to 2.75 instead

The big issue here is that it doesn't make diagonal measurements easier.

So, in summary, I do want to see the requested functionality of a measure tool in Layout, but in the meantime, here's a strategy I use to make it less painful.

Re: A measure tool for page units in Layout

ColtonPercy — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 18:36:02 GMT

@AlfredBaldenweck

Ever pull out the ol
D=sqrt((x2-x1)^2+(y2-y1)^2)
to make sure an element you placed is in the right spot? Classic 😅 I do agree that measurements should end in 0 or 5. For my most recent project, everything is either 0.125in or 0.25in so I’m constantly turning guides on and off. Making this distance chart was all about figuring out the maximum length in each direction and doing some subtraction for each next line.

Re: A measure tool for page units in Layout

KAKS — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 13:43:39 GMT

Yes please! Today I needed to measure the distance of several diagonal lines on my layout for scaling a second figure of cross-section drawings. I was surprised to discover that a simple measuring tool (that provides the result in map units) does not yet exist. It's going to take me quite a bit of time to calculate all of these by hand......

UPDATE: I did find a work-around. I used dynamic text to add a relative scale (e.g., 1 inch equals 33 feet) which gave me the ratio of map units to actual length. I then added a length field to my line attributes and divided the lengths by 33 to get the length of the lines on the layout. Still several steps, but accurate enough for my purposes.

Re: A measure tool for page units in Layout - Status changed to: In Product Plan

AubriOtis — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 15:40:30 GMT