Symbols and styles in ArcGIS 10.

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Symbols and styles in ArcGIS 10.0

by abuckley on September 28, 2010

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By Aileen Buckley, Mapping Center Lead

There are some great new enhancements to the way you work with styles
and symbols in ArcGIS 10! Finding the right symbol and managing styles is
now simpler and easier.
Searching for Symbols
Finding appropriate symbols to apply to your features and graphics is easy in
ArcGIS 10 because you can search for and use symbols without having to
know to which style they belong, nor have that style referenced. When searching for symbols, you can
search within all styles available on your systemincluding your custom stylesor you can limit search
results to only those styles currently referenced.
Symbols in ArcGIS 10 have searchable tags that describe graphic characteristics, such color or type.
These tags can be modified for symbols in custom styles to describe any relevant characteristic, such as a
related project, map, layer, scale, or specification.

The Symbol Selector dialog box

The Symbol Selector dialog box is more customizable in ArcGIS 10. You can adjust the way that symbols

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are drawn and arranged in the Symbol Selector dialog box, which you can now resize to see more symbols
at once. You can choose to group symbols by the style file in which they are contained or by their category.

Pausing the mouse pointer over a symbol on the Symbol Selector dialog box opens a pop-up that lists
relevant information for each symbol.

Referencing Styles
You can now choose exactly which styles you would like referenced each time you open a new map
document. You can turn off the styles you dont use, and turn on the styles you do.

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Just choose the styles you want to display on the Style References dialog box, then click the Set as Default
List button. Any new map document will automatically reference this set of styles you selected.

The Style Manager

In ArcGIS 10 access to the Style Manager is also easier. In earlier versions of the software, you opened the
Style Manager dialog box from Tools > Styles > Style Manager. In ArcGIS 10 there is now one less click; its
now accessible from Customize > Style Manager. Also, you can manage referenced styles from the same
Style References dialog box found in the Symbol Selector within the Style Manager.

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Like the Symbol Selector dialog box, the Style Manager dialog box is also resizable. The Details view
shows you the tags for each symbol.
In ArcGIS 10, Esri-provided styles are read-only. This helps prevent inadvertently modifying the standard
set of symbols that are common to all users. It also means that you wont lose any modifications if you
need to reinstall the software this alleviates those situations in which symbols youve modified used to get
deleted or lost when a new version of the software was installed, You can easily use any Esri-provided
symbol as a starting point to creating your own symbols. Simply cut and paste symbols into a custom style
using the Style Manager dialog box.
Export maps styles
You can still Export Map Styles but you will find that the command is no longer available directly in the user
interface. You can add it by clicking Customize, then clicking Customize Mode. On the Commands tab,
either type Export Map Styles into the Show commands containing area or scroll down to the Tools
commands to find the Export Map Styles tool. Click, hold and drag it to any toolbar in your interface.

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You can place the tool on any existing toolbar in your interface so that you have easy access to it when you
need it.

Using 9.x Styles in ArcGIS 10

An ArcGIS style is really a Microsoft Access database. In ArcGIS 10, the database schema has changed
for some symbol types. When you open a style from a previous release in ArcGIS 10, new fields are added
to the database table to support the new search capabilities. You simply open and use a style from a
previous release in ArcGIS 10. Because of the schema change, not all symbols are backward compatible
to previous versions. If you work in an environment where you need to use both ArcGIS 10 styles and
styles from a previous version, make a copy of the older styles and name them appropriately, before
opening and modifying them in ArcGIS 10.
Thanks to Jaynya Richards, Edie Punt, and David Watkins for their help with this blog entry!
This entry was posted in Mapping and tagged Styles, Symbology. Bookmark the permalink.

7 Comments
GavinMartin says:
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October 20, 2010 at 11:23 am

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abuckley says:
Thanks for the comments!
February 19, 2011 at 2:02 am

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dmcconna says:
I created style files in 9.3.1 that do not seem to work with rasters in 10. I can add them, and use them on vector data, but not on raster data.
The colors just do not show up in the palette. How do I name them appropriately (if that is the problem) so that 10 can use them?

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February 1, 2012 at 12:50 pm

http://blogs.esri.com/esri/arcgis/2010/09/28/symbols-and-styles-in-arcgi...

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efcza says:
pretty late but I tried upload old style (9.3) to ArcGIS 10.. well.. it is working but it looks like different, not correct what to do? some symbols
are replaced with otherones
March 22, 2013 at 5:43 am

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Jaynya says:
It is very likely that when your styles were copied over, the fonts they require may not have accompanied them. In order for the marker
symbols (especially) to appear correctly, both items must be install.
The older version (9.3) style will open in 10x but it will not be available in the same way as in 9.3 after being opened in 10x due to schema
having been added in 10x.(see the last paragraph of the blog entry above)
One first step is check that the version 10x fonts are in the windows fonts directory. If they are missing, then install them,and the styles
should appear correctly.
March 22, 2013 at 10:14 am

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lapierce says:
Are there any enhancements for exporting a 10.1 style to 10.0 ?
Suggestions ?
December 8, 2014 at 10:32 am

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abuckley says:
We cannot support backwards compatibility in styles. The reason why a newer version of a style may not work in a previous version of
the software is due to a change in the persistence of the objects that make up a style. For example, this can include extensive code
changes to marker symbols such as when we began supporting additional picture types including png. The previous version of the
software will not support these types of pictures which is why the style will fail.
December 11, 2014 at 11:57 am

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