Maps Tweaks – grid label orientation

Posted on August 24, 2015 by geoscat

I was asked today whether it was possible to change the orientation of the coordinate labels on the right hand side of a map layout so that, instead of the bottom of the text facing the edge of the page, they would face the edge of the map.

The good news – it is 🙂

In slightly more frustrating news – its a bit more fiddly than we’d like

If you need to do it though, the steps are below the cut…

So, the first bit of advice is to get everything else in your map perfect first.

Set up your Grid or Graticule using the Wizard in the usual way as you are creating your map and be sure to use the “Store as a fixed grid that updates with changes to the data frame” while you get everything else set the way you want it. The following steps really do need to be the very final things you do to your map:

Save your MXD.
Now save a backup copy. We are about to do some serious messing with it and things could go wrong. Backups are truly awesome things to have at this point in proceedings.
In the Grids Tab of the Properties dialog box, select/highlight the Reference Grid that you created and click on “Convert to Graphics”
You should then get a pop-up telling you this was successful
Right Click on the Data Frame (not the new graphic properties) and turn off the grid that you have just converted to graphics and apply the change
Save your .MXD.
It’s easy to select the wrong graphic element(s) in the following steps, and you are likely going to have to repeat the following operations several times in quick succession, it will be easy to make a mistake if your fingers slip or you are tired.
Right click on the grid elements in the top right hand corner of the map and select “ungroup”
Select the top vertical numeric element and rotate it right (or left) twice.

That’s one down… Save your .MXD!
Repeat step seven until you reach the bottom grid element on the right side of your map 🙂