idea Designating Items In Legend Columns in ArcGIS Pro Ideas

Designating Items In Legend Columns

Anonymous User — Fri, 22 Jun 2018 14:27:21 GMT

PRO seems to lack the ability to designate which items are combined/grouped to be within a column in the legend. The option of resizing patches and text to fit does not provide the solution, nor does the check box to keep in its own column.

For example, trying to get PRO to move the precincts boundary under the school district boundary- There is no option to designate voting centers, school dist boundary, and prec boundary to be in one column.

"Keep in single column" does not group the items to a single column and is not a solution.

PRO needs to have the option as found in ArcMap:

People are still making paper maps and still require the ability to manipulate legend items to make them look professional.

Re: Designating Items In Legend Columns

SeanHlousek — Mon, 25 Jun 2018 17:22:48 GMT

Agreed.

I have found if I fiddle with the resizing options including frame, font sizes, and columns, I can usually get the legend to behave the way I want but ArcMap's dialog is much more simple and it seems like it could even be combined into the new PRO interface.

I see the direction they are heading with Legends in PRO but it still feels very unfinished. I have submitted ideas regarding choosing what items to have turned on by default when you create a legend as well as clicking and dragging items to rearranged them. The Legend is one instance where, in the effort to eliminate "wizards" they seem to have created more work for users. The Legend creation Wizard in ArcMap wasn't perfect but it worked better than automatic creation of a Legend with everything in your layout and then having to set all values, re-arrange things, clicking and dragging to set up columns and font sizes etc.

Re: Designating Items In Legend Columns

KoryKramer — Wed, 25 Jul 2018 16:14:13 GMT

Do you have the Fitting Strategy set to Adjust columns?

Work with a legend—Layouts | ArcGIS Desktop (see Fitting Strategy)

Then adjust the width and height of the legend to determine the number of columns. Can you try that and check back here with what doesn't work?

Thank you!

Re: Designating Items In Legend Columns

SeanHlousek — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 21:22:59 GMT

Kory,

I think the idea is about having direct control over what items start a new column like we had in ArcMap where we had the option to place item in a new column.

You are correct in that you can adjust the width and height to have PRO create new columns but this is "indirect control of the columns. I preferred having the option to set where a new column would appear regardless of my height and widths.

One example I can give you from the oil & gas world is sometimes when making a competitor map I'd make my competitor leases start in a new column from the wells. This would give me some legend blank space with which I could insert custom items. (In my case I'd insert a additional dialog box showing viewers that the color of the text for the competitor leases would indicate whether the lease was Federal, State or Fee (private)).

The idea is that we had some functionality in ArcMap that we no longer have direct control over in Pro. It's true we can fiddle with height and width - and in my example above I can create additional box(es) as graphics with the text on top but this is clunky compared to the ArcMap method.

Re: Designating Items In Legend Columns

KoryKramer — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 21:42:42 GMT

This is helpful. Thank you for the input, Sean.

Re: Designating Items In Legend Columns

Anonymous User — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 18:10:42 GMT

Kory,

Sean did a good job of conveying the idea for me. To put it in images, I am able to group the vote centers and School District boundary in one column and assign the precincts their own.

In PRO, it does what it wants to. There is no control. In example: I added the address shapefile and want it to appear in its own column after the precincts, but instead it bumps up the first precinct, and is placed under the last precinct:

And what is up with those ellipsis? I know they mean that the contents(?) are not fitting in the legend boundary or something, but I find that hard to agree with in most cases. For example, I wanted to do the "legend" in Title Case, (which should be an option for text style, but maybe that is another idea that I need to create) using the <ACP></ACP><SCP></SCP> formatting tags, changes the case, but throws the ellipsis.

Re: Designating Items In Legend Columns

Anonymous User — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 18:11:52 GMT

Sorry- the first example is done in 10.5

Re: Designating Items In Legend Columns

KoryKramer — Fri, 03 Aug 2018 13:01:14 GMT

Thank you, Jeff. I'll have the layout team take a look.

Re: Designating Items In Legend Columns

Anonymous User — Tue, 09 Jul 2019 13:51:02 GMT

I'm back in PRO trying to make another map with a legend and its still having this issue in 2.4. I can't get that 'Rural Response Areas' moved to be under the 'Response Areas' group where it should be.

'Keep in single column' does not do anything.

Re: Designating Items In Legend Columns

JenniferBorlick — Mon, 26 Aug 2019 19:01:03 GMT

I agree. In this instance, I want the Section Lines to be in Column 2, but if I do that the Local Roads fall off. I also need to figure out how to get this legend to fit. This was an import from an ArcMap document I have. It all fits in ArcMap.

Re: Designating Items In Legend Columns

JenniferBorlick — Tue, 27 Aug 2019 15:06:50 GMT

It is there! BUT in order for you to see it, you need to have the legend fitting strategy set to "Adjust Columns"

Then in Format Legend Items you can set the arrangement to New column.

Re: Designating Items In Legend Columns

Anonymous User — Thu, 07 Nov 2019 21:42:11 GMT

@ Kory Kramer, It looks like there has been a lot of improvement on the initial issue- the 'keep in single column' and 'new column' is responding like they should. I think this idea can be closed?

Re: Designating Items In Legend Columns

ChadCoziahr — Wed, 05 Feb 2020 20:29:56 GMT

I think Sean H. had the right word choices for the problem. Control vs. Fiddle With

Sure the current Pro system is great for the kind of map that gets thrown together and doesn't have 3 perfectionist managers with keen eyes reviewing it. Then fiddle all you want, who cares if the font is the right height. But for those of us that have to do a high level of cartography on "boring" things like legends, this system is cause for screaming!

I need to be able to set controls on things like the font size, column breaks and even where a single theme breaks into the next column. The "Fitting Strategy" just makes it so I have to chose one function over the other, when both (or more) are necessary. These are the types of things that strongly impede migration.

The work around? Multiple legend items...well as long as they aren't dynamically moving through a map series.

Re: Designating Items In Legend Columns

AndersOlsson — Tue, 14 Apr 2020 08:21:35 GMT

Hi,

I am working in Pro 2.3.1 and maybe this is fixed in later version but this is how my legend behave

I have Arrangement - Fitting Strategy - Adjust Columns

The only change between the alternative is that I check New column för Järnväg.

Why is the element at the back not visible in Alt 2.? There is space for it.

Alt 1.

Alt 2.

Re: Designating Items In Legend Columns - Status changed to: Implemented

KoryKramer — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 23:44:33 GMT

Implemented in ArcGIS Pro 2.7.

See

Also check out what's new in ArcGIS Pro 2.7!

Re: Designating Items In Legend Columns - Status changed to: Implemented

AubriOtis — Mon, 22 Mar 2021 14:11:16 GMT

This was implemented with the new Manual Columns fitting strategy in ArcGIS Pro 2.7. Learn more here: https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/layouts/layout-fitting-strategies.htm