topic Map Series Scale Bar in ArcGIS Pro Questions

Map Series Scale Bar

NavaSheer — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 14:41:06 GMT

Does anyone have a good workaround for getting scale bars to look good across a whole map series. I have found many years worth of questions here about setting the scale bar across a map series with wide range of scales - but no real answers! I dont want maps with tiny short or crazy long scale bars or strange numeric scales😳. I've tried every setting, but nothing works well across a range of scales. HELP!🙏

Re: Map Series Scale Bar

DanPatterson — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 14:48:23 GMT

"fitting strategy"

Scale bars—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation

what have you set there? and what have you tried?

Re: Map Series Scale Bar

NavaSheer — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 14:55:55 GMT

I've tried every fitting strategy. Nothing works well over a broad range of scales within the map series. Either you get long and short scale bars, or weird numbers that I have no control over. Ive thought of inserting two scale bars for different map scales, turning off and on. But that defeats the idea of the map series, espcially if I set to have all maps made into one pdf automatically all at once.

I would love any creative workarounds

Re: Map Series Scale Bar

AlfredBaldenweck — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 20:51:01 GMT

This doesn't 100% solve the problem, but along those lines, you can apply a visibility scale to each scalebar so they automatically turn off and on with each map in the series.

For example, the scalebar on the left is visible further away than 1:1,000,000, but the one on the right is for the more zoomed-in pages.

I agree that a new fitting strategy of "Maintain maximum and minimum size but make each division be a round number like 5 or 10 or 0.5" would be great, and if you wrote an Idea for it I would happily upvote it.

Re: Map Series Scale Bar

NavaSheer — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 07:07:51 GMT

Thank you! Great workaround! I never realised there was a visibilty scale for the scale. And now I see it was right in front of me. But I will also write an idea to improve the scale bar to work better in map series.🙏

Re: Map Series Scale Bar

DEAF_PROBERT_68 — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 22:01:32 GMT

You can try convert the scale to graphics, but I have not tried drag where you want...