How To: Set ArcMap Display Units to Decimal Degrees Programmatically

Summary

By default, ArcMap uses the Degrees Minutes Seconds format when setting the Map display units to esriDecimalDegrees. How can the display units setting be changed to decimal degrees?

Procedure

Setting map display units to decimal degrees requires the IReportUnitFormat interface in addition to setting the DistanceUnits property on IMap. The following Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) script shows how to use IReportUnitFormat.

Note:
At ArcGIS Version 10, VBA was deprecated and a separate license is required. To use this code, please contact your Esri account representative for a VBA license for 10.

Code:
Sub SetDisplayUnitsDD()

    Dim pMxDoc As IMxDocument
    Set pMxDoc = ThisDocument
    
    Dim pMap As IMap
    Set pMap = pMxDoc.FocusMap
    
    Dim pReportUnitFormat As IReportUnitFormat
    Set pReportUnitFormat = pMxDoc
      
    Set pReportUnitFormat.LatLonFormat = Nothing
    
    pMap.DistanceUnits = esriDecimalDegrees

End Sub

Article ID:000004598

Software:

ArcMap 8 x
ArcMap 9 x

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Set ArcMap display units to decimal degrees programmatically

Summary

Procedure

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