Create and manage Legend directly in the Layout View

[JurajKrumpolec]

Significant improvements are needed in the field of Legend Element creation and management to be more interactive and flexible, to allow for faster and more effective workflow. No wizards or cumbersome dialog boxes necessary. This idea makes use of functionality proposed by https://community.esri.com/ideas/3260.

Fast and easy Legend creation:

• Drag and Drop selected layers from TOC directly to the Layout.
• Context menu in TOC: Add to Legend/Remove from Legend options.
• Legend context menu: Add/Remove Item.

Flexible Legend management and formatting:

• Resizing Legend Element horizontally and vertically distributes Legend Items into columns and wraps legend text, especially labels into multiple rows.
• More different shapes of Legend’s frame (not only rectangle). Wrap Legend’s contents around graphics in the Layout. Change vertical content’s alignment.
• Threading Legend Elements – allow contents to flow between connected Legends in different parts of the Layout. Possibility to rotate Legend Element.
• Edit Legend’s spacing with possibility to parametrically define each size directly in the Layout.
• Change Appearance and Arrangement of all Items directly in Legend’s context menu.
• Access map connection settings directly through Legend context menu. Possibility to define custom reference scale.
• Insert special-purpose formatting objects: Line, Heading, Space, Column Break, etc.
• Introduce overall Legend Style, which would define Legend properties and formatting including: items format, spacing between legend’s parts, title format, etc.
• Legend context menu example

Interactive Legend Items manipulation, formatting and display:

• Reorder, move or copy legend’s items directly in the Layout by drag & drop inside single Legend Element or between different Legends.
• Possibility to replace items by drag &drop while preserving item’s formatting and settings.
• Insert Placeholder or Proxy to temporarily take the place of currently unavailable layer.
• Access Legend Items directly from the Layout. Apply style or custom formatting, patch shape and size to item parts, multiple items selected or the whole legend. Possibility for each item to have custom background.
• Control display of: Item, Name, Heading, Label, Description, Patch for selected/all items.
• Legend Item context menu example:

Provide serious Undo functionality.Related idea: https://community.esri.com/ideas/3660

[KitT]

Please oh please ESRI listen to your users.  The ability to set a default font OTHER than Arial by itself would be extremely helpful as Arial is not, in my estimation, a "professional" font.  Many entities/fields have fonts that they use in all their publications and presentations which have been either arbitrarily or carefully selected.  The inability to easily transfer all the fonts within a presentation piece to such a specified font is mind-boggling.  The amount of time that gets wasted having to go through multiple items in multiple maps in order to set fonts to something other than Arial is huge.  It's also frustrating.

I concur wholeheartedly with all the commentary herein regarding legend adjustments, the font issue is just the tip of the iceberg.  Since legends are CRUCIALLY important to great map-making - properly getting across your message to the audience - the ability to easily customize not just individual parts but overall "themes" is imperative.  This particular method is a joy to behold and I (and many others) are just itching to give it a try. 

[JoeChampagne]

I LOVE this, especially the very clear animation that duri has included in this proposal. Esri, you need to make this happen.

[PatWhiting]

Great idea. Also it would be great if in the legend we could easily put multiple lines of text for one item. Often our descriptions or labels are very long and it would be great to be able to wrap them

[DonielleComeau]

I second the suggestion made by patwhiting!  Wrappable text would be SO helpful (vs. the make-shift annotation boxes I paste on top of my actual legend...).

[DavidBarnes]

Automatic text wrapping for labels and descriptions in legends is available as of 10.1. Go to the legend properties to the Layout tab and check out the new options in the lower half of the dialog. :)

[MatthewBodnar]

Was just discussing this today with co-worker...

Sounds like a fantastic idea.

[srinivasvuggirala]

Hello,
I have one request that is i want to change symbols at one time in layout using command line. Normally i am using Match to symbols in symbolgy categories.but its taking time to change point,line and poly data.

[MikeLueck]

As an added suggestion, incorporating a stylesheet option that automatically formats everything to a predefined style. For example, the stylesheet might affect all aspects of the design and formatting. Also being able to select a default style for all new maps. This would allow more rapid map production that conforms to corporate style guides.

[MikeLueck]

Another idea: smart patches that match the feature type in the shapefile. For example, a hydrology feature class might have rivers, streams, lakes, marshes, etc. Implementing patches representative of these features automatically would be a great benefit.

[keithornbaum]

This would be a significant improvement. It is simply counter active to have to right click ‘properties’ and then be able to make the edits needed. Having the ability to make edits to the legend in Layout view would improve turnaround time on products; improve the efficiency when working on other peoples layouts making the investment on the software more enticing to map makers and cartographers.  It is great to see other with the same enthusiasm for this functionality.