topic Re: Aligning Annotations in ArcGIS Pro Questions

Aligning Annotations

DnyaneshDeshpande — Fri, 02 Jul 2021 22:49:59 GMT

I have a series of 8 annotations on an annotation layer. I want to be able to select all the annotations on that layer and then align them so they overlap and are on top of each other. Is there a way to do this other than select them individually and manually move them on top of each other?

Re: Aligning Annotations

DEAF_PROBERT_68 — Sat, 03 Jul 2021 13:22:57 GMT

Hi friend, it would be good for you to screenshot of what you are doing and it will help us to know what you are talking about..

Re: Aligning Annotations

Scott_Harris — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 13:20:27 GMT

@DnyaneshDeshpande

use the Align and Distribute commands that appear when you right-click on the map when the Move tool is open. More info here: https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/editing/align-or-distribute-features.htm

Modify features pane > Move
Select the features
Right-click on the map and choose the appropriate command.

Does that help?

-Scott

Re: Aligning Annotations

DnyaneshDeshpande — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 20:55:55 GMT

Thanks I did try that at one point but the commands don't affect my annotations. They are annotations not linked to a feature class. I'm not sure if this works on this type of annotation or not, maybe I have something not correctly configured?

Re: Aligning Annotations

DnyaneshDeshpande — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 21:20:47 GMT

Here is an example, I want to align all the Castledown Road annotations so they are on top of each other. You can also see the layer structure where there are multiple annotations in a single layer

Re: Aligning Annotations

Robert_LeClair — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 22:30:43 GMT

I think what "may" be happening is your HorizontalAlignment attribute field is set to something other than "Left." Select the annotations is question and change the HorizontalField attribute to Left for all the features and then use Scott's workflow. I should work as expected based upon my testing.

Re: Aligning Annotations

DnyaneshDeshpande — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 15:40:31 GMT

Thanks for the suggestion! I looked and they were set to Center in the HorizontalAlignment filed. I changed them to left but the alignment options still don't seem to be having any effect at all on the annotations. Still puzzled by what is stopping them from moving in this situation. Does it matter that these are in different feature classes?

Re: Aligning Annotations

Scott_Harris — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 15:31:48 GMT

@DnyaneshDeshpande

Are you seeing any errors/warnings for any of the layers in the List By Editing tab of the Contents pane?

https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/editing/specify-which-layers-can-be-edited.htm

How about in the Editing Status window? https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/editing/view-layer-permissions-for-editing.htm

Re: Aligning Annotations

DnyaneshDeshpande — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 16:52:42 GMT

There is an error/warnings in the editor status window, they are:

"This Layer is being projected on the Fly"

and

"This member cannot be found at the location specified"

Re: Aligning Annotations

Scott_Harris — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 17:21:21 GMT

Projection on the fly should be okay, but are you seeing "This member cannot be found at the location specified" for the annotation layers in particular?

Re: Aligning Annotations

DnyaneshDeshpande — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 17:48:58 GMT

Yes, that error is for the annotation layers themselves. In particular each of the annotations in the annotation layer.

Re: Aligning Annotations

Scott_Harris — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 18:18:26 GMT

Ah I see... that seems like this bug that was fixed in 2.8:

noted here: https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/get-started/release-notes.htm

However, with that bug, you should still be able to edit the annotation, so I'm not sure why Align isn't working for you. Esri Technical Support can help give you a faster answer, but upgrading to 2.8 might be a good starting point.

Re: Aligning Annotations

AmyKuhel1 — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 14:55:49 GMT

Scott, I am having similar issues with trying to align annotation. I have ArcGIS Pro 2.8.2 and one aspect that I was looking forward to with updating to 2.8 was aligning annotation. It isn't working as I had hoped. Different errors seem to happen with different projects. On one, the error message about not being able to move because it was out of bounds showed up, which I thought was fixed on 2.8.2.

On the examples included, with this map project, it isn't moving them as I want. I want the stack of labels to be left aligned so that the text boxes are still stacked but aligned. The anchor points NEED to stay where they are. Instead what is happening is that when I left align, it is moving all of the annotation and stacking them on the the left most annotation label, including the anchor point.

Re: Aligning Annotations

Scott_Harris — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 16:08:41 GMT

@AmyKuhel1 The Align commands that are available with the Move tool context menu work for features and annotation; however leader line annotations are a bit tricky and there is no guarantee that the leader will remain in the same location because the entire annotation feature is moved (like you are seeing).

Regarding the "out of bounds" error, I'm not familiar with it. Do you have more info on it? Esri Technical Support is the best place to report and get the status of bugs.

Re: Aligning Annotations

AmyKuhel1 — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 17:20:37 GMT

I do hope that we can move and align annotation with leader lines at some point (soon?) because I deal with it a lot. If I can get away with it I use graphics just because I can move those as needed, but sometimes, you just need feature linked annotation.

re: the error message... this is what happened in a different project

It is true that not all of the layers in the project are the same projection, but for what I was trying to accomplish, I wasn't clear on why that would matter.

And this item in the release notes for 2.8.2 is what made me think that it had been addressed, but I haven't dug into it too deeply yet.

Thanks for your reply!

Re: Aligning Annotations

Scott_Harris — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 18:07:43 GMT

@AmyKuhel1 That bug should be fixed in 2.8.2 and higher. I confirmed it as well on my machine.

Are you using the Annotation tool? That will allow you move the anchor and/or the text. The Move tool is different.

Re: Aligning Annotations

AmyKuhel1 — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 18:14:34 GMT

I selected them with the Annotation tool but I do think I switched to the Move tool to move them because that is where the align options appear. Ultimately, however, it probably doesn't matter because until we can move multiple annotations with line leaders staying anchored (as mentioned in the Idea link you gave earlier), there won't be any aligning them the way we need.

Thanks for your time!

Re: Aligning Annotations

MarcelSt-Germain — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 14:42:11 GMT

@Robert_LeClair @Scott_Harris

Nice to be able to make alignment in a regular map. Does it a way to do the same when map have a rotation? When selecting my annotations to align them, they move out of alignment . Maybe something like align to Display like in point rotation orientation.

Re: Aligning Annotations

Scott_Harris — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 14:54:31 GMT

@MarcelSt-Germain Allowing alignment based on the grid's rotation as well as a specified angle are something we'd like to add in the future. Aligning to the map's rotation is a good suggestion as well. Feel free to add an Idea to the Ideas site.