Symbol library

[Yavapai-ApacheNation]

Are there additional symbols we can use for our Story Maps? I am looking for more outdoors-ish, agricultural, ethnic, American Indian. Or if we make our own, what are the size limitation and/or pixel dimensions?

[BlakeTerhune]

You might find this article helpful.

Use PNGs as ArcGIS Picture Marker Symbols | ArcWatch​

And here is the current Help document on marker symbols.

Creating marker symbols—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop

I've used images and fonts for creating custom symbology. I don't know if any size restriction, but 64x64 pixels is pretty standard. If you want smaller symbols, maybe save it as a smaller size so ArcMap doesn't have to squish it. Opposite would be true for larger symbols.

You can also download and install any font you can find on the internet and use the character symbols in ArcMap; just search for the style you want (ethnic, american indian, etc) with the word "font" afterward. There are also lots of good unicode symbols that already exist (although they are more generic).

[OwenGeo · Accepted solution]

Hi Judie,

First, I just wanted to make sure that you realized that there are several symbol sets available on ArcGIS Online. I've noticed that sometimes people don't realize you can select a category of symbols (see the first few screenshots below).

There are also several great open-use symbols sets on the web. One of my favorites is Map Icons by Nicolas Mollet. These symbols are under a Creative Commons license, so make sure to credit your use of them. To use them:

1. Download the symbols you want
2. Post them publicly on the web somewhere such as on your web server or other web storage like Dropbox, Amazon S3, etc. (note: hot linking directly from the Map Icons website is not allowed)
3. Go to the symbol settings for your layer and click the link to Use an Image (see last screenshot)
4. Paste in the URL of your symbol

Owen

[Yavapai-ApacheNation]

Perfect. I was using the category sets, but I suspected there must be others. I will work on this.

Judie Piner

Preservation & Technology

Yavapai-Apache Nation