Export Data Driven Pages to MXD

[JenniferBorlick]

I am currently working on a countywide map that has a wide variety of scales for the data driven pages. I have used DDP to generate the views and that got me 90% of the way there,  but I need to customize the labeling and annotation of each individual map. The label for an individual feature could be in both a large scale and a small scale map. I would like to be able to save each map and turn off the data driven pages for each map dynamically rather than having to "save as" for each individual map.

[ChrisFox]

Thank you for posting your idea. I am not sure I completely understand the request. Would you be able to provide additional details regarding your workflow and what is currently lacking in the software?

[JenniferBorlick]

I am currently working on a County Supervisory District map. I want to be able to provide each Supervisor with a detailed map of their District. Some of the districts are geographically small and some of them are large. I want to be able to annotate each of the maps with the roads and municipal boundaries that make up the perimeter of their district. DDP do not work in this instance because each map has its own unique annotation data. In order to make the maps I created DDP and then for each District did a File>Save As. and assigned it the DDP name. Then when to the next page and did the same thing. I then went in and annotated each of the maps manually.

It would be nice if the File>Save As... worked like the Export to PDF and saved each Page in its own MXD.
(I tried turning off the DDP for each map but that didn't work well, so I left it on.)

[EricaSmith2]

I'm encountering a similar issue. I'm working with DDP to create one map for each language group in the world, but I would like to, after setting up the layers as best as possible to apply for all of the maps, export each page to a separate mxd to further edit it. I used "Save As" to create a copy of the mxd, then went into the copy and turned off the DDP to show only the one map that I wanted, but then I had to reset all of the definiton queries because they were based on the page definition query that was part of the DDP. I think there should be an easier way to batch export each DDP page to a separate mxd file for further editing, rather then having to click "Save As" and then reset the whole mxd file for hundreds or thousands of pages.

[SamuelHildebrand2]

I think he is asking if there is a way to export each data driven page to it own mxd.  This would be great!  Is there a python script out there to do this?

[ChrisFox]

There is no way to turn on or off data driven pages through python, however if you want to zoom to the extent of each page and save it to a new map document you can do this very easily through python. Below is a code sample:

import arcpy, os
mxdPath = r"C:\Project\DDPMap.mxd"
mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument(mxdPath)
mxdDir = os.path.dirname(mxdPath)
for pageNum in range(1, mxd.dataDrivenPages.pageCount + 1):
    mxd.dataDrivenPages.currentPageID = pageNum
    mxdName = os.path.join(mxdDir, "DDPMap" + str(pageNum) + ".mxd")
    mxd.saveACopy(mxdName)
del mxd

[VictorKing]

This sounds like an excellent idea!!! To export Data Driven Pages to their own MXDs would enhance my deliverables to my clients. They just want simple .MXDs as they are not that GIS savvy and just want to open maps and overlay layers.  

[AubriKinghorn]

ArcGIS Pro allows you to have multiple layouts and maps, supporting workflows like this.