idea Export symbology classes to a table in ArcGIS Pro Ideas

Export symbology classes to a table

Bud — Fri, 16 Dec 2022 00:28:50 GMT

I'm working with a FC that has data, of sorts, stored in the symbology.
What I mean is: there is UNIT information in the symbology as labels, yet that UNIT information doesn't exist in a field in the attribute table of the FC anywhere.

I want to copy or export the information from the symbology to a table -- to be used as a lookup table that I'll use to add/populate a UNIT field in the FC.

I've looked in the docs and poked around in ArcGIS Pro. As far as I can tell, there isn't an OOTB tool to copy or export the information from the symbology classes to a table.

Could Esri consider adding that functionality to ArcGIS Pro?

Or, I suppose the holy grail would be:
Idea: Convert symbology labels to a field in a feature class

Re: Export symbology classes to a table

Bud — Wed, 07 Dec 2022 08:36:46 GMT

Some background info about the layer:

The layer's source was a Microstation drawing that was converted to a FGDB FC by an outside organization. That's beyond my control; I don't have access to the original Microstation file. And even if I did, I wouldn't know what to do with it.

There are dozens of maps in this series, all with different symbology. So I don't want to create these symbology/translation tables manually by typing the information into a lookup table or field calculation. That'd be too much work. An OOTB tool would be better.

Enable copying of values from symbology pane

wayfaringrob — Wed, 14 Dec 2022 19:52:53 GMT

Enable the copying of values from the symbology pane. This may be useful when generating a data dictionary, creating a customized legend, or manipulating data outside of ArcGIS Pro. Right now when you select all > Ctrl+C > paste in something like Excel, it pastes an array of empty cells.

Copying this:

Gives you this:

Re: Enable copying of values from symbology pane

Bud — Sun, 19 Mar 2023 04:11:45 GMT

Re: Enable copying of values from symbology pane

KoryKramer — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 21:45:53 GMT

@wayfaringrob can you review https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-pro-ideas/export-symbology-classes-to-a-table/idi-p/1237634 submitted by Bud and opine on whether that might satisfy what you're looking for? If so, it would likely make sense to merge these ideas.

Re: Enable copying of values from symbology pane

wayfaringrob — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 22:25:26 GMT

@KoryKramer They sound more or less the same, yes.

Re: Export symbology classes to a table - Status changed to: Open

SSWoodward — Fri, 16 Dec 2022 00:31:08 GMT

Thanks for the Idea @Bud!

I've updated the label on this Idea to 'Map Authoring' to ensure your Idea gets the attention of the correct team.

Re: Export symbology classes to a table

JenniferBorlick — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 19:25:15 GMT

If anybody is looking for a work around on this... Take a screen grab of the symbology pane and save it as a JPG. Convert to an Adobe PDF, then edit the text. You can copy and paste from there. It's ugly. It's time consuming, but it's less time consuming than creating the table from scratch.

Re: Export symbology classes to a table

Bud — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 13:57:23 GMT

@JenniferBorlick Thanks for the tip.

Out of curiosity, did you try using Johannes Lindner's Python script?
https://community.esri.com/t5/python-questions/get-list-of-layer-s-symbology-classes-and-symbol/m-p/1238656/highlight/true#M66232

Re: Export symbology classes to a table

JenniferBorlick — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 14:06:09 GMT

I know just enough about ArcPy to break things. LOL.

This ended up working well for me because I'm hoping to use it in an arcade script to calculate a field based on how they are grouped in the symbology pane. I was able to use excel to format the lists as a variable, and do a copy paste.

Re: Export symbology classes to a table

Bud — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 22:26:08 GMT

Esri Case #03501469 - Copying/pasting values from the symbology pane results in an array of empty cells