Is there a way to make a legend out of an attribute table?

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04-21-2020 02:29 PM
AndreasMock
New Contributor

I have a point feature class that contains about 20 rows of information pertaining to those points. These include the location, type of project and also a brief description. Ideally, I would like to use these fields to build a legend of sorts, so that the information will be displayed in my layout (much like an excel file). However, I am only able to add it as a "add table to layout", which basically just extracts the information. This doesn't allow me to customize it at all (change size). When I make a legend, it just takes the symbol for the point layer and has that. 

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DanPatterson_Retired
MVP Emeritus

Add a legend—Layouts | Documentation 

You describe the behaviour of a legend correctly

When I make a legend, it just takes the symbol for the point layer and has that.

And adding the table as you describe is correct as well.

If you want a fancier legend, you can try multiple field symbology, or the simplest in your case, may be to add a new text field and concatenate the data in the row that you want and use that field for the legend.  I suspect that this will be less that satisfactory since overwhelming the legend with too much information may be distracting.  Referencing the table to point numbers and inserting the table for reference if people are interested, may be a compromise.

Hard to tell, however, without seeing what information you are trying to convey and whether it needs to be mapped or just described in tabular form.

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