About creating and managing dimension styles

This topic applies to ArcGIS for Desktop Standard and ArcGIS for Desktop Advanced only.

A dimension style describes how a dimension feature is displayed, including its symbology, label font, and label text. Each dimension feature class has at least one style. Dimension features within the dimension class are associated with a particular style. All dimension features of a particular style have certain characteristics that are the same and other characteristics that can be overridden on a feature-by-feature basis.

Dimension styles are created and managed in ArcCatalog or the Catalog window on the Feature Class Properties dialog box. You can create, delete, rename, and import dimension styles, and you can specify the default style for a dimension feature class.

The dimension styles' properties are defined on the Dimension Style Properties dialog box. This dialog box has three tabs: the Lines and Arrows tab, the Text tab, and the Fit tab. The Lines and Arrows tab allows you to set the properties for the dimension lines, line arrows, and extension lines. The Text tab allows you to control the content of the dimension text as well as its symbology. The Fit tab allows you to define how the dimension and dimension text adjust when the dimension's length is too short to display the arrows and text between the extension lines. Each tab and property on the Dimension Style Properties dialog box is discussed in the following pages.

When creating dimension features and assigning them a style, some properties can be overridden on a feature-by-feature basis. The properties that you can override for each feature are

• Dimension line display
• Dimension line arrow symbol display
• Dimension text value
• Extension line display