How do you make a layer in a map not editable?

[IainStuart]

I have a map in which I am editing some layers but also have a few layers in as reference points. How to I avoid accidentally editing the reference layers? In drawing programs you can turn the ability to edit on and off by a simple mouse click but I cannot find something similar in ArcGIS 10.3.

Cheers

Iain

[DanPatterson_Retired]

How about making it not selectable? Using the table of contents—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop

haven't edited in a long time, but this rings a bell

[TobiasFimpel1 · Accepted solution]

Iain,

instead of making them non-editable you could see if making them non-selectable suits your needs. The section "Listing by selection" on this website describes how to do that. For making them truly non-editable you could move their datasources into a different workspace (since ArcMap can only edit one workspace at a time), or use permission settings if they are stored in an Enterprise Geodatabase.

[JohnPlunkett]

The non selectable is the quickest way to achieve what you want to do.

Using the table of contents—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop

Scroll down to Listing by selection

However if the data is in an SDE, depending on who the users are etc.. you can make it no editable this way.

If it is in FGDB or Shapefile there is not a way I can see you achieve this expect use the help link I provided

Cheers

John

[DavidBarnes]

Data in basemap layers can't be edited, so one option might be to create a basemap layer in your map (right-click the data frame in the TOC and select New Basemap Layer and drag the layers you don't want to edit into the basemap layer)?

[IainStuart]

Thanks everyone. Half the time with these problems finding the correct the terminology is 75% of the problem. I suppose it would be too much to hope for a common vocabulary.

The solution was simple and works so many thanks for the prompt responses.

Iain

[DavidBarnes]

Don't forget to mark the question as answered.