[GIS] How to add an arrow to a line

arcgis-10.1arcgis-desktoplayoutsline

I want to have arrow heads at the end of a number of lines. I add these through Line properties –> Line decorations.

It looks nice and all when displayed in the legend:

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But in my map, due to different angles it looks more like this:

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or this:

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The arrowhead is not centered on the line, it is not even at the end of the line! It looks even worse if I have thicker lines (which I want).

I have tried to fix this with adding a displacement, but I can't do that in a direction relative to the line, only relative to the map (x/y directions).

What can I do to fix this? Or is there an alternative way of adding arrows to my map, preferably with my lines as starting ground?

I have noted this question, which to some degree deals with the same issue. Although it is asked for Arcgis 9.3 and the accepted solution is not solving my problem (I want exactly one arrow head for each line feature).

Best Answer

Unfortunately you are not the first person to have this problem! A solution is suggested here 3 years ago and indicates the issue has existed since 2002 (and probably earlier). The solution is to use cartographic representations which requires an advanced editor license...

As a possible alternative "fudge" (which I have not tried so not sure of any pitfalls) you could extract the end points of the lines and placing them as a separate layer of markers and rotate them appropriate for each line, this would require you attributing the line with the direction they are pointing.

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