Simple highway shields for Pro - TEXT

AvaFarouche — Fri, 23 May 2025 19:32:26 GMT

Hi all,

I'm having trouble with highway shield symbols in Pro. First off, let me state: I do NOT want to use the labels / annotations. It's much easier to just add a few text inserts in my layout. If I label highways, there are always TONS of extra labels, so I have to turn it into annotation, and then delete a bunch of them and move them around - and then they're usually too small anyway. It's much easier to just insert straight text in my layout and then I can make them in a size that my intended audience can actually read and is appropriate for the use of the map.

This works fine for interstate highways, because there's a ready made interstate shield I can use as a point callout. If I want to do this for any other type of highway, there are no appropriate shields. The only other shields available in point callouts are solid colored - without the option for a border.

So, a sort of standard map symbol for a state highway looks like this:

But in Pro, I can only have a solid-colored one, with no border, which doesn't work great. A white shield without the black border can easily disappear, depending on the background. I could make a black one with white text, but that's not really standard and can be confusing to the viewer. And, well, I just don't like it quite frankly.

I figured out that I can format a point symbol callout so I can have two layers of the callout. So I created a white shield with a slightly larger black shield underneath it to try to have the illusion of a border, but it looks clunky:

I can't make the black shield proportionally any smaller and when zoomed out to a realistic scale as it would appear on a map it looks messier; the black "border" is much too large and the two layers don't appear to fit one another properly.

I did attempt to find the appropriate symbol via labeling my highways layer but I couldn't find a better way to do it there either.

I found this post, https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-pro-questions/highway-symbols-from-ddv-issue-in-pro/m-p/355510 which appears to offer a solution to obtaining the appropriate symbols in a special file and having them saved some special place and importing them some special way - but really??? Do I have to go through all of that just to have a standard highway shield? I am spoiled from Map I guess but I really was hoping there's a much easier way to do this.

Thanks for your input!!

Re: Simple highway shields for Pro - TEXT

AlfredBaldenweck — Fri, 23 May 2025 20:24:33 GMT

I think you should probably just use labels for this, but that's fine. If you move your camera in Layout view, you're up the creek. (I know a guy who was using layout graphics to draw maps of archaeological sites. Disaster.)

Anyway, here's what you do:

Insert your point
On the elements pane, go to the symbol tab and then go to the Layers tab within that
Hit "Style" to change to the shield
Now, hit the "Shape point symbol" drop down
Select "Format point Symbol"
Change the color to white and make the Outline more than 0 pts

That's it. You'll have to adjust to get the right ratio, but you don't need to stack because the symbols never quite scale the way you'd hope.

Hope this helps!

Re: Simple highway shields for Pro - TEXT

AvaFarouche — Fri, 23 May 2025 20:45:04 GMT

Aaaaaah thanks!!!!

I tried to format the point callout previously but every time I picked the shield the outline attribute would disappear. I missed that super basic step of going back to "Format point symbol" *after* I had picked the shield. Or something. Anyway, I missed that option.

Thanks!!!!

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Simple highway shields for Pro - TEXT

Re: Simple highway shields for Pro - TEXT

Re: Simple highway shields for Pro - TEXT