Technical Articles >  ArcGIS Desktop  >  ArcMap  >  Layout View  >  Map Elements

Knowledge Base - Technical Articles


Technical Article   HowTo:  Display descriptions from layer symbology in the ArcMap legend

Article ID: 17448
Software:  ArcGIS - ArcEditor 8.3, 8.1, 8.1.2, 8.2, 9.0, 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 9.3.1 ArcGIS - ArcInfo 8.2, 9.0, 8.0.1, 8.0.2, 8.1, 8.1.2, 8.3, 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 9.3.1 ArcGIS - ArcView 8.3, 8.1, 8.1.2, 8.2, 9.0, 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 9.3.1
Platforms:  Windows NT 4.0, 2000

Summary

Descriptions are optional additional text to display in a legend next to or in place of class labels.

Descriptions are especially useful to display labels and other information with different text formatting options. For example, to show the common name of a species with regular text, and the scientific name with italics.

Procedure

  1. Double-click the legend to open the Legend Properties dialog box.
  2. Select the Items tab.
  3. In the Legend Items list, right-click the appropriate item and select Properties from the context menu.
  4. Select the General tab.
  5. Check the Show Descriptions box (this box will be inactive if no descriptions exist).-show me-

    [O-Image] Legend Item Properties, Description
  6. Optionally, click Description Symbol to edit the text symbol properties for the description.

    Here is an example of a legend showing a label and a description.
    -show me-

    [O-Image] Legend showing label and description

Created: 3/23/2001
Last Modified: 5/3/2011

Article Rating: (1)
If you would like to post a comment, please login

Comments

By Anonymous - 12/02/2004 2:53 PM

BUT I cannot use...my show descriptions box is grayed out and there is no mention of why that would happen.

Rating:

By Anonymous - 02/24/2003 4:54 PM

I want the description under the symbol and label - how do i do that??