idea Allow Rectangle Textbox to Grow/Shrink and Vertically Justify Text in ArcGIS Pro Ideas

Allow Rectangle Textbox to Grow/Shrink and Vertically Justify Text

LucasMurray2 — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 22:47:10 GMT

Allow the rectangle textbox to grow or shrink based on the text within the box. When creating data driven pages, I sometimes add long text to describe the data in the map. If I size the textbox for the longest text and the text shrinks for one of the maps, I'm left with a large blank space between the bottom of the text and the bottom border of the box.

Also, within a rectangle textbox, allow me to control the vertical justification of the text. Currently, it's only top justified. I'd like the ability to make it center or bottom justifiy.

Thank you.

Re: Allow Rectangle Textbox to Grow/Shrink and Vertically Justify Text

BrandonNelson1 — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 13:44:26 GMT

+1 for vertical justification in rectangle text. Seems to me like grow/shrink would be better implemented as allowing users to set a fixed width for normal text elements.

Re: Allow Rectangle Textbox to Grow/Shrink and Vertically Justify Text

RobertBorchert — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 16:13:23 GMT

Great idea and conversly I would like to see the TEXT grow or shink to fit the box.

ArcGIS Pro text box fitting strategy: adjust frame

geodoozer — Sun, 29 Sep 2019 03:11:49 GMT

I was recently creating a layout involving many different elements. Adobe InDesign narrowly won over Pro because I was able to automatically adjust the text box size to fit the text I had just made, then distribute my elements vertically on the page. This did not seem easily possible in ArcGIS Pro 2.4.1. Yet, I see in the legend controls, a Fitting Strategy: Adjust Frame option:

Could this be added to the options for text boxes please?

If I am overlooking something, I do welcome others' feedback. I am enjoying the greater control ArcGIS Pro is offering over ArcMap.

Re: ArcGIS Pro text box fitting strategy: adjust frame

geodoozer — Sat, 23 May 2020 02:31:11 GMT

Here's a graphic of the same issue today at 2.5.1, I find it hard to align text elements neatly within a layout when the bounding box is not able to be snapped to the size the text and background turned out.

Re: ArcGIS Pro text box fitting strategy: adjust frame

MichaelPielow — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 23:39:28 GMT

Still an issue at 2.8.1. Simple things like not having the text box automatically fit the text make Pro difficult to use.

Re: ArcGIS Pro text box fitting strategy: adjust frame

AliciaHack — Fri, 20 Aug 2021 17:08:34 GMT

Agree. Would be great to have the text box adjust appropriately to the changes in the text symbol. And the text symbol change in size when the text box is adjusted. This was how it worked in ArcMap.

For example, if I have a text box with 10pt font and I change it to 20pt font, I have to resize the box in order to see the full text. Currently if you increase the font size, the text box stays the same and you see a 3 red dots ... indicating that there is text that's not visible.

Re: Allow Rectangle Textbox to Grow/Shrink and Vertically Justify Text

wayfaringrob — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 17:02:14 GMT

Wow, this is from 6 years ago. I can't believe this has never been implemented. It would be so, so useful.

Re: ArcGIS Pro text box fitting strategy: adjust frame

StefanUseldinger — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 13:32:45 GMT

We need this!

Re: Allow Rectangle Textbox to Grow/Shrink and Vertically Justify Text

GregGeimer — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 20:10:51 GMT

+1 Surprising vertically aligning text is still not possible.

Re: ArcGIS Pro text box fitting strategy: adjust frame

JustinJohnston — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 20:56:52 GMT

I am having the opposite problem now. I have a text box that keeps making the font size increase if I change the shape of the text box. I can't find a setting to make it so that it word wraps properly or let me pick specific xy dimensions. Currently the dimensions aspect ratio appears to be locked, so it just changes the font size instead of letting me adjust the box size.

Frustrating.

Cheers,

Justin

Re: Allow Rectangle Textbox to Grow/Shrink and Vertically Justify Text

SBrandenburg — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 22:00:20 GMT

ESRI any thoughts on this? Seems to be highly requested, yet very basic functionality. Obviously lots of us have text that varies with how many lines are displayed for a given page or layout, and we need to have the text centered. Using the Offset Y option is extremely slow and obviously only works on a case by case basis. Thanks.

I think the overwhelming majority of users would prefer to see basic updates like this addressed before all the little non essential knick knacks that are continuously popping up in ArcGIS Pro.

Re: Allow Rectangle Textbox to Grow/Shrink and Vertically Justify Text

DustinCokely — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 21:41:59 GMT

This would be immensely helpful for GIS analysts or consultants creating series of maps. It would be an immense quality of life update, it's the little things that make the difference sometimes.

Re: Allow Rectangle Textbox to Grow/Shrink and Vertically Justify Text

wayfaringrob — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 21:58:06 GMT

@DustinCokely agreed. Having to rely on just eyeballing your text box heights ends up looking pretty unprofessional and manually adjusting whenever something changes is really inconvenient. The justify options would also be very welcome additions! I have hope that Pro will mature into good design software, and it's getting better, but you're right, there lots of little things that we take for granted in other applications that really need to be implemented.

Re: Allow Rectangle Textbox to Grow/Shrink and Vertically Justify Text

HeathAnderson — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 20:48:14 GMT

I agree. I have an ArcMap project that I can't move over to Pro because the "grow/shrink" text box is not an option yet. The project revolves around reporting historical features that are accompanied by a narrative. These narratives can sometime be short or quite lengthy.

Re: Allow Rectangle Textbox to Grow/Shrink and Vertically Justify Text

KennethKellett — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 03:49:42 GMT

Can't believe it's been 8 years and this hasn't been at all addressed. Like why were the buttons for Position Vertical Alignment even added in the first place if there was never any functionality for it. Does the team building the ArcGIS Pro UI not talk to the programming team?

On a more productive note, Adobe Indesign has an whole host of position and page alignment options for text boxes that would be incredibly useful to have in ArcPro, besides just vertical alignment, not that I'm holding out hope ESRI will listen.

Re: Allow Rectangle Textbox to Grow/Shrink and Vertically Justify Text

wayfaringrob — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 15:31:42 GMT

@KennethKellett that's exactly what we need.

Re: Allow Rectangle Textbox to Grow/Shrink and Vertically Justify Text

dns — Fri, 20 Jan 2023 19:12:03 GMT

This feature would help me center text in the middle of the rectangle text box. Please let us know if there is any other information that would help prioritize this. It is a pretty common task in graphic design and layout design to center text within the text box.

Re: ArcGIS Pro text box fitting strategy: adjust frame

Cheryl — Thu, 02 Mar 2023 19:13:16 GMT

I've recently started trying to use Pro more and am practicing creating layouts as I do in ArcMap. I went online thinking I was missing something, or there was a setting that could be changed to have the text box automatically resize. This should've been addressed by Esri long ago.

Re: ArcGIS Pro text box fitting strategy: adjust frame

JoshuaKeeley_NHDES — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 15:53:59 GMT

I've had this problem as well--when you try to manually change the size of a text box and instead of the font size staying the same, the font size changes as the aspect ratio seems locked to the edges of the text box. To get a functioning text box that does not affect the font size when changing text box size, copy and paste any text onto your layout (don't copy and paste a text box--only a text string). A new text box will plot in the middle of the layout and should work as expected.