THE UNOFFICIAL ARC/INFO 
AND ARCVIEW SYMBOL PAGE

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. How can I make Composite Marker symbol from a TrueType font?
A. There is an excellent white paper posted on the ESRI Support Site, the ID Article is 11903.

Q. Is there any other way besides using ARC/INFO to create custom AV3 Pen and Fill symbols?
A. Sure.  Try the Stippler and Vedit extensions available HERE

Q. Are there any free AV3 palletes on the WWW?
A. Yes.  Some are maintained on this site and links to others are provided.  ESRI has been posting an increasing number of symbol sets on their ArcScripts site.

Q. Can I create custom Symbols?
A. Don't Forget about the marker edit or line edit tools in ArcPlot that allow you to make all kinds of changes to existing symbols.   You can also digitize a marker or line and place it into a font and then create a marker or line with it.  There is an extensive discussion on this subject in ArcDocs.  The process isn’t terribly difficult just extremely time intensive. 

Q.  Can I copy selected marker symbols from different ArcView palettes into a single palette (.avp file)?
A. Here are two methods to achieve this. One is manual and tedious and consists of loading all the needed palettes into the marker palette using the palette manager. Then save this large palette into a file, clear the current marker palette, load the new file and delete all markers of no interest.

Another way is to use the script below written by Denis Roose. Thanks Denis.

avPalette = Av.GetSymbolWin.GetPalette.Clone
avSymLs = avPalette.GetList(#PALETTE_LIST_MARKER)
newPalette = Palette.Make
newSymLs = newPalette.GetList(#PALETTE_LIST_MARKER)
newSymLs.Empty
idx2CpLs = {161,130,118,117,70,67,51} 'the index number of the symbols I want to keep
For Each idx In idx2CpLs
newSym = avSymLs.Get(idx).Clone
newSymLs = newSymLs.Add(newSym)

End

newPalette.SaveToFile(#PALETTE_LIST_MARKER, "$MYPROJECT/graphic/marker/qnet.avp".AsFileName)

Q. If I cannot find Highway Marker Symbols for my area what can I do?
A. If you don't want to buy a commercial product use ESRI's or other interactive mapping web site, and zoom to WI, MI and to the level to see the marker symbols you want and then do highlighting, copying, pasting and editing in some graphics program (PaintShop Pro, etc.). Once you get the ones you want you can import them into AV. They don't look as nice (smooth and rounded) as the AV symbols but at least you can use numbered highway symbols that users can understand. Another way is to put a number on top of the AV highway shield and combine graphics but I NEVER could get them to stay aligned when zooming in/out or when printing. The previous way consistently works with zooming and printing. -  A1 H. Johnson 

Q. Can I import ArcInfo text sets into ArcView?
A. Import AI (PC based) text into AV3a.  You can insert the text values into AV3, convert them to a shape files, and allow the control of the text size and font types using AV3 commands. It will keep the orientation of the AI font. But as far as I've noticed, it will not keep any of the font type information from AI. (All the AI text coverages I work with are simplex fonts.)- ERIC P. BAUMAN

Q. Do DMA/NIMA compliant mapping symbols exist?
A. are not currently available . There is a symbolset available for ArcView on ESRI's homepage. And the following URL contains NIMA's proposed Geospatial Symbols for Digital Displays (GeoSym). Although not a Arc/Info ready symbol set, it provides you with a detailed listing in CGM format of NIMA's proposed symbology.http://164.214.2.59/vpfproto/geosym1.htm - Craig Miller

Q.  Is it possible to convert Arc/Info fill palettes to a format that can be used with Arcview?
A.  AV3.1 has the ability ot import AI symbols. The procedure is courtesy of  Shannon Scott (Thanks Shannon). You can bring in the Arc/Info shade,line and marker sets into the 3.1version of Arcview. Open the symbol palette window. Click the button furthest to the right (after the color button) - in the Type: dropdown box - select the type of symbolset you want to import - click the load button - a file dialog opens - select the type of files you want to see - Arc/Info symbolsets should be an option.

If you have AV3.0 then you can use the following Avenue script from Deborah Wilson aisymtoavsym.ave

Q. Does ESRI provide any resources about symbology?
A. Yes.  ESRI has a number of "white" papers on the subject.  They can found here:  White Papers. Reference the 2200 series of papers

Q. Is there a way to specify color through pantone or RGB in AV palette editor.
A. A script on the ESRI web site to do RGB specification or you can use the PANTONE shadeset available from HERE.

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ESRI, ARC/INFO, PC ARC/INFO, ArcView, ArcCAD, Atlas GIS, Data Automation Kit (DAK), Simple Macro Language (SML), and Avenue are trademarks of Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.

Page last updated October 26, 2001.
Please direct comments to:  Brian T. Sheahan