8 replies to this topic

[Hans van der Maarel]

Still working on my ArcGIS map...

 

I have a text layer in my personal geodatabase that's originally coming from Illustrator via a mid/mif file. This layer contains many different classes of texts and through the export process there's been an attempt to maintain the style from Illustrator, so this is stored in the annotation's attributes.

 

How on earth can I override that? I want to be able to assign a new text style to a certain class of text objects in one go, but so far have only been able to do it one by one, or by just editing the annotation attributes, neither are great solutions for the long terms.

[jrat]

You should be able to use the calculator on the Annotation attribute table to change the annotation class ID.  You can also select multiple annotation elements then select the range in the attribute tab and then change the annotation class and it should update all of the selected features.

[Hans van der Maarel]

I had looked at that, but then couldn't find a way to actually create those annotations (i.e. the styles). It now dawns on me that that might be something that needs to be done in ArcCatalog.

 

I worked around it by selecting by attribute and then setting the annotation inline. Just struggling with the font size, the attribute values for that are huge, over a million. This means I can't set them in the regular style dialog, I have to edit the actual attribute values. However, it doesn't always seem to work. Also, there doesn't seem to be a relation between the attribute value and the real world size of the text (e.g. a text that's 400 m tall in real world units has a font size attribute value of around 1080000), so I'm kinda groping. I do know I need to reduce them all a bit in size to avoid overlapping labels.

[Unit Seven]

Hey Hans,

 

Did you export from Illy as DXFs?

 

I have done a lot of work migrating Microstation anno to Arc GDBs—how did you get teh anno into the GDB? I usually used the import CAD anno tool.

 

One thing to keep in mind the annotation class needs to have a scale set  (Feature cLass Properties > Annotation > Reference Scale) This could explain you off values.

[Hans van der Maarel]

I exported them out of MAPublisher as mid/mif (so I could retain attribute values) and then put them into my geodatabase using FME.

[katzmoye]

In ArcCatalog in the properties of your annotation class on the Annotation Classes tab you should be able to create your new styles. Then in ArcMap you should be able to start editing, open the Annotation feature class table, select the records you want to change, and then use the field calculator on the Symbol ID field to change it to the new symbol style you created.

 

Instead of using the Field Calculator you can also open the Attributes window (button is on the Editor toolbar). This also allows you to apply edits/changes to a group of selected features en masse by selecting the layer name at the top (rather than an individual record) and then changing it's attributes.

 

The attached screenshot hopefully shows this. If I select the parent element (POINT_FEATURESAnno) I can apply a single change to all the child elements (2-1, 2-10, 2-11, etc). For example the Annotation Class dropdown (Default, Class1, Class2, etc). In this case, changing the Annotation Class doesn't really do anything but changing the SymbolID does.

 

Hope this helps!

Attached Files

•  Screenshot_1.jpg   22.45K   7 downloads

[Jon B Ball]

HI Hans

 

Would Symbol Substitution be of use to you? See a reference to it on this page: http://help.arcgis.c...0001m000000.htm  

 

To perform the symbol substitution you need to acccess the properties of the overall Annotation Feature Class (e.g. right click > properties in the table of contents) and view the symbology tab - this is from memory so please let me know if you do not see options for symbol substitution there! You should see options to substitute any/each Annotation Class right there. (Do not look at ther properties for each Class individually, look at the overall set of Annotations).

 

I have had some success using that, but be warned: sometimes the symbol substitution seems to be a bit clumsy and overrides all the manual edits that I have made on the Annotation such as the character and word spacings that I might have created for each feature to make a nice fit between the feature and the anno.

 

Hope that helps!

 

Jon

[Jon B Ball]

Hey Hans - I think symbol substitution may only be an option if your annotation is in a File Geodatabse ...

 

Jon

[wick]

I exported them out of MAPublisher as mid/mif (so I could retain attribute values) and then put them into my geodatabase using FME.

Hans,

I'm looking at ways to import text from Illustrator files into Geodatabase annotation. How does this process handle curved text on paths?

Anyone have other recommendations or best practices when attempting this conversion?