[GIS] Why do some Customised Symbols look good in map but disappear from Legend on Export

arcgis-10.0arcgis-desktoplegendsymbology

I am using ArcGIS Desktop 10.0

I created some customised symbols for my map which ArcGIS Desktop did not have. To do this I used BMP files and imported the symbols.

They look good on the map but do not appear well in the legends when I export the map into any format e.g JPEG.

They either do not appear or appear very light.

What can cause this?

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Best Answer

The symptoms that you describe seem to be those of Bug NIM003653 which is discussed in Knowledge Base Article 30753 (Picture symbol legend patches, inserted images, and objects fail to draw when exported to PDF, EPS, AI, and SVG).

See that Technical Article for full details but the key information is:

Cause

If the inserted object, image, or legend patch falls outside the default page size of the Windows default printer, Windows GDI drawing calls used by ArcMap may not properly draw the object or image on output.

Workaround

On some printers, selecting 'Use Printer Paper Settings' in the Page and Print Setup dialog box alleviates the problem. See the link in the Related Information section for more information on how to use the Use Printer Paper Settings option.

Alternatively, set the Windows default printer's default page size to a page size as large as or larger than the page layout that is being exported. For example, if the map document is a tabloid size (17 x 22) set the default printer's default page size to 17 x 22 or larger before opening ArcMap.

Further information can be found in the ArcGIS Discussion Forums where an Esri staff member says:

If it is [NIM003653: Picture marker symbols or EMF pictures on the layout can fail to draw on output.], then this is not going to be fixed, as it is a limitation of Windows GDI.

It will be interesting to see whether this is an issue with ArcGIS Pro when that is released with ArcGIS 10.3 for Desktop.

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