idea Resize scale bar in ArcGIS Pro in ArcGIS Pro Ideas

Resize scale bar in ArcGIS Pro

deleted-user-sYHsW3p_gN5o — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 22:12:55 GMT

Currently in ArcGIS Pro the scale bar doesn't totally resize when you try to resize it. It goes from this:

To this:

Notice how the length of the scale bar increased, but the height did not. This seems counter-intuitive and should be improved in an update to ArcGIS Pro.

Re: Resize scale bar in ArcGIS Pro

KoryKramer — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 19:28:35 GMT

To clarify the equivalency issue:

In ArcMap we see:

Resized to this:

Re: Resize scale bar in ArcGIS Pro

deleted-user-sYHsW3p_gN5o — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 19:40:22 GMT

Exactly Kory. Thanks for adding this!

Re: Resize scale bar in ArcGIS Pro

ThomasColson — Thu, 05 Jul 2018 15:02:00 GMT

Kory Kramer‌, during your all-night marking as implemented marathon, you may have missed this one....to others, this is implemented, albeit not in an arc map equivalency way: you will need to go into item properties and set the height, there is a reason why you can't do it with the mouse-drag method that a developer explained to me that I don't understand, but it makes sense....

Re: Resize scale bar in ArcGIS Pro

KoryKramer — Thu, 05 Jul 2018 15:45:07 GMT

Thanks, Tom. You're right that the height can now be controlled in ArcGIS Pro 2.2, which does provide a way to fully control the size of the bar. Like you note, the mouse-drag method does not work, and yes, there is some design behind why it was decided to not have everything including text scale when you decide to change the size of the bar.

But because there is some work happening around that mouse-drag functionality that may be pertinent to the scale bar among other elements, such as legend, I wanted to hold off.

Cheers

Re: Resize scale bar in ArcGIS Pro

davedoesgis — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 01:31:14 GMT

Semi-related question: As you resize the scale bar, the numbers of map units are not always nice round numbers. Is there some way to explicitly set the length of the scale bar in map units? For example, in Kory Kramer‌'s screenshot above, he resized to 2,480 miles. If I were doing that, I would want to round it down to 2,400 to make a number neatly divisible by 4. Is there some way to just tell ArcGIS Pro to make it 2,400 miles long? Fooling around with the scale bar item's width in page inches is really tedious!

Re: Resize scale bar in ArcGIS Pro

deleted-user-sYHsW3p_gN5o — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 16:08:31 GMT

I totally agree. I often spend time just guessing-and-checking to try to get the scale bars to even numbers. Perhaps this should be its own Idea page?

Re: Resize scale bar in ArcGIS Pro

davedoesgis — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 17:19:48 GMT

It's been there for over 2 years. Each vote is 10 points and, with mine, it now has 30 points...

https://community.esri.com/ideas/12503-set-scale-bar-distance

Re: Resize scale bar in ArcGIS Pro

BRENNEJM — Mon, 15 Jul 2019 18:42:06 GMT

Can someone else double check me on this? I just installed ArcGIS Pro 2.4 and am finding the same results as the original poster. I can still go into the properties and control the height, but all it does is increase the elements bounding box size, it doesn't increase (or decrease) the size of the scale bar. It will even let you shrink it so that the scale bar is outside the bounding box. Maybe I'm missing something?

EDIT: It would also be nice if I could choose "Adjust Width" as the Resize Behavior and still go to the Properties and change the height of the scale bar. I do this every single day in ArcMap.

Re: Resize scale bar in ArcGIS Pro

Anonymous User — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 19:33:01 GMT

I had this same problem... But finally realized it was because I had multiple map frames of varying scales open in the same layout. You need to make sure that you select the map frame with which you want the scale to bar to apply. If you have an empty map frame selected in your layout, then the scale bar will not resize in any way and remain at the same divisions

Re: Resize scale bar in ArcGIS Pro

BRENNEJM — Mon, 22 Jul 2019 12:52:54 GMT

Thanks for the reply. I just tried it again with only one map frame and made sure it was selected in the scale bar properties, but I'm still getting the same results. Dragging a corner changes the width of the scale bar, but not the height. Typing a new height in only adjusts the element bounding box, not the scale bar itself. Are you running Pro 2.4? I'm tempted to install Pro 2.2 and see if it works as expected in that version like the above comments state.

Re: Resize scale bar in ArcGIS Pro

Anonymous User — Mon, 22 Jul 2019 17:22:21 GMT

Ohhh okay, sorry I thought you meant that neither the width, nor the unit divisions were changing either.

I'm in 2.4 and having the same problems regarding auto-adjustable height.

But you can change it manually by going to Scale Bar > Scale Bar > Properties > Bar > and then adjust the height manually to what you want.

Also you can change the font manually: Scale Bar > Text Symbol > Properties > Appearance > and adjust it manually.

Unfortunately this looks like the only (and arduous) way to do it... Not sure if 2.2 had the functionality you're looking for... Let me know if it works out haha, the manual adjustment sucks.

Re: Resize scale bar in ArcGIS Pro

BRENNEJM — Mon, 22 Jul 2019 18:05:17 GMT

Interesting. The only way I can edit that bar height property is to turn on "Stepped". It doesn't control the height of the entire bar though (at least not in a logical way). I also tried converting the scale bar to a graphic, but Pro requires you to preserve the aspect ratio (there's no option to unlink them like there is for normal graphics). So resizing that way means the scale bar isn't accurate anymore. This is one of those mildly infuriating things that always stops me from switching from ArcMap to Pro. Pro is better in so many ways, but the lack of basic functionality like this is annoying.

Re: Resize scale bar in ArcGIS Pro

Anonymous User — Mon, 22 Jul 2019 18:34:07 GMT

Don't know if this helps ^

It's still possible to do what you want to do, it's just a fairly more annoying process than in ArcMap.

I agree Pro is great, but yeah the full functionality isn't quite there yet in some regards.

Re: Resize scale bar in ArcGIS Pro

KFung_TLC — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 23:25:52 GMT

Sigh...I can't believe after so many years ESRI still haven't properly address this issue. Either they don't care or just show their contempt on users working day in and out on cartographic/map production matters.

Am I too mean to say ArcPro simply sucks in this regard?

Or just bring back ArcMap.

Resize scale bar

BradMooney1 — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 15:42:58 GMT

In ArcGIS Desktop, you can easily resize a scale bar by pulling on the corners or the middle of it. ArcGIS Pro does not allow you to do this. Yes, ArcGIS Pro allows more control over the appearance and dimensions of the scale bar at the expense of time. In a rapid production environment, end users often don't have time to navigate the multiple menus to make that happen. Why would you take a function out that is available in ArcMap? Shouldn't ArcGIS Pro be everything that ArcGIS Desktop has to offer and more? Users have been asking for this since 2017.

Re: Resize scale bar

AlfredBaldenweck — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 17:13:57 GMT

That sounds like it's probably a fitting strategy issue, tbh. Try a different one and see if that fixes it.