Managing style contents

The Style Manager dialog box lets you organize styles and their contents (symbols and map elements). You can cut, copy, paste, rename, and modify any style contents, and you can create new styles, symbols, and map elements.

To modify the contents of a style, open the Style Manager dialog box and click the style you want to work with. Highlight a style class within the style file and right-click to access commands to modify the contents.

Use the Style Manager dialog box to manage the contents of styles.

Tip:

You can use keyboard shortcuts to cut, copy, paste, and delete styles.

Note:

Your personal style is the default location where new symbols and style elements are saved. It is empty to begin with but can be used to organize your style contents. It will always be referenced by ArcMap.

Besides creating brand new symbols and map elements, you can also export the current styles used in your map to a new style. You can create and modify symbols and map elements as you design your map and save everything into a style. Exporting map styles allows you to save map elements and symbols from many styles into a single style.

System styles

The system styles included with the software are read-only, indicated by a gray folder icon in the Style Manager dialog box. You can copy symbols and other style elements from them into writable styles to use as a starting point. Populated, writable styles have yellow folder icons; white folder icons indicate empty style folders.

Dive-in:

There are three very similar system styles—CADD GIS CENTER SDS 195, 200, and 220—that re-create the CADD/GIS TriServices standard for Military and Civilian facilities management. They differ only by year of compliance and correspond to Spatial Data Standards 1.95, SDS 2.00, and SDS 2.20.

The CADD/GIS Technology Center annually updates and expands the SDSFIE and FMSFIE. Prior to July 1999, the SDSFIE was known as the Tri-Service Spatial Data Standards (TSSDS) and the FMSFIE was known as the Tri-Service Facility Management Standards (TSFMS). Release 1.40 of the TSSDS (which was the first release published on CD-ROM) was completed in July 1995. Release 1.60 of the TSSDS was published in November 1996. The TSSDS Releases 1.70 and 1.75 were published in August 1997 and January 1998, respectively. The TSSDS Release 1.80 of the TSSDS, which also included the first release of the TSFMS, was published in February 1999. From July 1999 until January 2001, the acronyms SDS and FMS were used. The SDS/FMS Releases 1.90 and 1.95 were completed in December 1999 and April 2000, respectively. The SDSFIE/FMSFIE Release 2.00 was completed in January 2001.