idea Georeferencing PDFs in ArcGIS Pro in ArcGIS Pro Ideas

Georeferencing PDFs in ArcGIS Pro

KetiKonstantinova — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 13:59:05 GMT

Hi,

In my line of work, I need to be able to georeference PDFs in ArcGIS Pro. We already have significant library of all the PDFs that we need (more that 100,000). For us it is a waste of space and money to convert all of these (and future) PDFs in TIFF or JPEG files.We will need additional space to store them. We have other programs that are using the same PDFs and will not work with other format of raster files. In other words, we need to be able to georeference PDF.

Thanks!

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Re: Georeferencing PDFs in ArcGIS Pro

BrianHall7 — Thu, 17 Oct 2019 17:36:24 GMT

I too have been converting many PDFs to TIFs lately. It would be nice if we could save the storage space.

Re: Georeferencing PDFs in ArcGIS Pro

DavidSolari — Fri, 01 Nov 2019 20:34:23 GMT

I have to deal with PDFs generated from CAD drawings regularly, being able to quickly georeference those PDFs (most of them already have some georeference info in them) and display them as a reference layer under the GIS data would be a fantastic feature for Pro.

Re: Georeferencing PDFs in ArcGIS Pro

JosiahPoyitt — Thu, 21 Nov 2019 03:48:29 GMT

I've encountered similar issues over the last few years. Being able to import and utilise PDFs is a great idea.

Especially since MXD and APRX files can be exported as PDFs with some degree of georeferencing, so it makes sense to be able to bring them back into the software as spatially enabled files.

Re: Georeferencing PDFs in ArcGIS Pro

DavidHorwood — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 18:55:44 GMT

This comes up a lot in parcel mapping. It is extremely useful to geo-reference a survey plan (or plat) to use for COGO entry or attribution. It can also serve as a proxy before a new development in advance of an actual update to a parcel fabric. It is very compelling to see a plan in geographic context.

In the past most plans were scanned as TIFFs, however more an more plans are scanned and saved as PDF's, mainly to prevent inadvertent modification (and simple viewing). It is not straightforward to convert a PDF into a JPEG or PNG which are the most suitable formats for geo-referencing. Either a paid version of Acrobat or a third party image editing software is required.

It would be very useful to simply add the PDF to the map and geo-reference it like any other "image". Alternatively, a simple conversion from PDF to image (TIFF/JPEG/PNG) would be sufficient. Generally around 125 DPI is sufficient for screen display (if gray scale or full color).

Re: Georeferencing PDFs in ArcGIS Pro

EkremCanli2 — Sat, 18 Apr 2020 09:42:11 GMT

The current status of this feature request is 'Reviewed'...any updates? We too have to deal with gazillions of PDFs generated from CAD drawings...being able to georeference those would be so, so good.

Re: Georeferencing PDFs in ArcGIS Pro

BartoszDerbis — Wed, 09 Jun 2021 16:27:44 GMT

I don't even see PDF to TIFF tool in ArcGIS Pro. Am I'm missing something?

Re: Georeferencing PDFs in ArcGIS Pro

AubriOtis — Wed, 09 Jun 2021 20:21:23 GMT

Hi! The PDF To TIFF tool is currently marked as In Product Plan. You can follow the idea here: https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-pro-ideas/pdf-to-tiff-tool-in-pro/idi-p/940962

Cheers,

Aubri

Re: Georeferencing PDFs in ArcGIS Pro

BartoszDerbis — Wed, 09 Jun 2021 21:39:06 GMT

Thank you Aubri for a quick response. I thought Desktop and Pro were on par now, I guess not quite.
Bartosz

Re: Georeferencing PDFs in ArcGIS Pro

GeraldGabrisch — Wed, 14 Jul 2021 17:24:20 GMT

Geospatial PDF drivers are freely available in GDAL. Why is ESRI so far behind adding full support for Geospatial PDF? QGIS has supported this format for years.

Re: Georeferencing PDFs in ArcGIS Pro

MoritzSchilling — Mon, 06 Sep 2021 10:48:22 GMT

Would like to see this feature, too.

We often get sketches as PDF-Files from clients and need to georeference them to display their correct location on a map for authorities etc.

As others allready mentioned this feature is common with QGIS.

Please add it to ArcGIS Pro ASAP.

Re: Georeferencing PDFs in ArcGIS Pro

JackFanZhang — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 09:01:22 GMT

@GeraldGabrisch maybe ESRI just wants to be kind so other geospatial software like QGIS could have some space in the market.

Re: Georeferencing PDFs in ArcGIS Pro

LarsArneson — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 23:57:20 GMT

This would be a very helpful feature. Leaving the file as a PDF to maintain all of its accuracy would be much better than converting in many case. Not to mention the unnecessary step of creating a new file before georeferencing it. I realize that not all ideas can be quickly implemented but it is frustrating to see ideas like this sit for over two years with comment, kudos and thousands of views without anything being done about it.

I had the opportunity to go to the ESRI conference in 2018 and chat with a few developers about adding the Mirror tool to the polygon editing toolset. The next update to ArcGIS Pro had the mirror tool in it..

Re: Georeferencing PDFs in ArcGIS Pro

TomDe_Leus1 — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 09:50:10 GMT

I agree that this would really be very helpful. I have several pdf's coming from CAD designer that I need to add to our ESRI GIS environment. It's so easy in QGIS, should be easy in Pro as well...

Re: Georeferencing PDFs in ArcGIS Pro

BobSage — Fri, 22 Apr 2022 19:59:14 GMT

I hope you've got your wonderful team of engineers working on this one!

Re: Georeferencing PDFs in ArcGIS Pro

Neil_Carlson — Sat, 04 Jun 2022 23:39:48 GMT

Endorsed. Georeferenced PDFs would be a big help.

Re: Georeferencing PDFs in ArcGIS Pro

KoryKramer — Mon, 06 Jun 2022 14:34:41 GMT

Thank you for the comment @Neil_Carlson I took a look and it doesn't appear that you added your kudos to the idea. While comments are important, kudos (the number of votes) that an idea receives is one of the primary pieces of data that we use to determine traction and trends as we monitor idea activity over time.

Please see https://community.esri.com/t5/custom/page/page-id/arcgis-ideas for a high level overview of how ArcGIS Ideas works. For more details, see

Thank you for your participation in the community and for helping us prioritize future development efforts for ArcGIS Pro.

Re: Georeferencing PDFs in ArcGIS Pro

AZendel — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 16:20:00 GMT

Yes, please! The majority of site plans and plats that we receive these days are PDF (and they should be since PDFs preserve vectors). I'd love to see native PDF georeferencing without having to convert it to a separate format.

Re: Georeferencing PDFs in ArcGIS Pro

KoryKramer — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 16:38:10 GMT

@AZendel remember to add your kudos to support this idea! Also, for you, and others following this thread, we need to be clear that the expectation is to bring the pdf into ArcGIS Pro as a raster layer, correct?

Re: Georeferencing PDFs in ArcGIS Pro

AZendel — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 16:44:07 GMT

@KoryKramer , thanks for the reminder on the kudos. Done.

It'd be ideal to keep the PDF as a vector format (if the PDF contains vector layers). So ideally, it would be like a georeferenced PDF or a "GeoPDF" once you complete the georeferencing process.