In ArcMap (ArcGIS Desktop), very often when I apply a text wrap to a legend and then export the map to a PDF or other graphic format, some of the legend text simply disappears in the exported graphic!! It is a complete mystery and drives me crazy.
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Yes, this happens constantly and is indeed a mysterious glitch. As it is not fixed, here is a work-around that works for me:
Open the Legend Properties
On the Layout tab, uncheck your Text Wrapping. (I uncheck both "Wrap labels" and "Wrap descriptions").
Press Apply. All of your legend items should display fine (though unwrapped, of course).
After you have pressed apply, check "Wrap labels" and "Wrap descriptions" to turn wrapping back on.
Type your wrapping size in both boxes ("170 pt" for example).
Now here's where it is interesting. PRESS OK and your change should stick, without anything deciding to disappear.
HOWEVER, do NOT press "apply" before you press OK. If I do that, the legend labels disappear again!!
As you can see, it's a very glitchy situation, but this enabled me to move on and have my legend both wrapped and visible!
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Today I applied my strategy above and still had some disappearance issues. I applied my fix, closed ArcMap, started it again, opened my .mxd, and then the legend was there again (wrapped and visible as I need it). If you keep having glitches, make sure you try saving the document and re-opening.
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I had the same experience when I printed my maps using "data driven pages" with a wrapped legend. I tried the solution above, but I still had issues . Then I tried a lot of things, which took me hours.
To make a long story short: finally I just added some (1-3) space characters at the end of the (disappearing) label names and everything worked fine for me.
Alexander -- thanks for this tip. I tried all of the strategies listed within this discussion thread, and this "added spaces" technique works. Your hours spent were not in vain!
Same here. I was futzing around with wrapping point sizes and couldn't get consistent exporting of the legend to .pdf. The adding 3 spaces worked like a charm. Thanks VERY MUCH for this workaround!!
I got this when I change fonts, with Arial everything works just fine. If I use verdana, part of the legend text is disappearing, even some text that is not even wrap. So my workaround is to not use verdana in legend text... I don't know if other fonts gives the same results tho.
Been having this same problem with legends on data driven pages. Must have exported 20 times with no luck. Tried another computer in the office and had no problem? The three spaces solved the problem on my computer. Any idea why switching computers would have fixed the problem? Thanks.
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I discovered that when I have this issue (and I have it often), it only happens when the legend item ends with the word "Area" (try and figure that one out). After pulling all of my hair out, I accidentally found that if I add a space at the end of the offending legend item, the problem goes away. Band-aid fix, yes, but my hair is growing back.
I found this only happened to me with some fonts- especially calibri - Arial was always ok. What fonts is anyone else using?
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This has been happening to me for the last few years with no rhyme or reason. Changing to graphics works, but not when you need to go back and amend the map at a later date - you lose the ability to update the legend without undertaking several steps. Time consuming issue. Esri needs to fix this!!!
This is a problem for me too. Did you figure anything out?