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Managing annotation feature class properties

Managing annotation feature class properties

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The Feature Class Properties dialog box is used to set the alias and spatial and attribute indices as well as manage properties unique to annotation feature classes—annotation classes, symbols, and settings that determine how the annotation features can be edited.

To open the Feature Class Properties dialog box, double-click an annotation feature class in the ArcCatalog tree view. Note that some properties are editable, while others are read-only.

Fields

The Fields tab lists the fields in the annotation feature class. The following are required fields and can't be deleted:

The SymbolID field will normally contain a value greater than or equal to 0. This value is the number of the text symbol in the symbol collection. If the value is -1, the annotation feature is storing the display properties in the record, and it is not referencing a text symbol in the symbol collection. When the SymbolID value is -1, the Override field value will be 0, as every property is overridden.

Learn more about text symbols in the symbol collection.

Other fields in the feature class reference the annotation feature's display properties. These fields can be edited, and the change will update the features BLOB element. Likewise, any change to the annotation feature through the Annotation tab on the Attribute Editor will be updated in the fields. These fields can also be deleted. The list of these fields is below:

Learn more about editing fields in the Attribute dialog box.

The Override field is a noneditable field that is maintained by ArcGIS. When the override value is 0, the annotation feature is displayed using the SymbolID text symbol that it references and no display properties are stored in the record. When the override value is greater than 0, the annotation feature uses the SymbolID text symbol as a base display and then applies the overridden properties to that symbol. See the table below for a list of these possible values. The values that are seen in the attribute table are a sum of the values below. For example, if the override value is 65, then both the XOffset (1) and Size (64) properties are overridden (1+64=65).


Override value Overridden property
1 XOffset property
2 YOffset property
4 Horizontal Alignment property
8 Vertical Alignment property
16 Flip Angle property
64 Size property
128 Color property
512 Character Spacing property
1024 Character Width property
2048 Word Spacing property
4096 Leading property
8192 Bold property
16384 Italic property
32768 Underline property
65536 Background Symbol
131072 Font property

Subtypes

If the annotation feature class has more than one annotation class, the annotation classes are implemented as subtypes. The Subtypes tab lists the annotation classes. However, to manage annotation classes, use the Annotation classes tab.

Relationships

For feature-linked annotation in ArcCatalog, the Relationships tab shows you the relationship class that links the annotation feature class to its linked feature class.

Annotation classes

The Annotation Classes tab allows you to manage annotation classes. You can add and remove annotation classes from the list. To modify or view the properties of an annotation class, select the annotation class in the list and access the properties with any of the controls on the tab.

Learn more about annotation in the geodatabase.

Other properties

The Annotation tab allows you to change the reference scale of the annotation feature class. Changing the reference scale takes a long time to complete, so change it only after you've carefully chosen a new scale by experimenting with your data in ArcMap.

The Annotation tab also allows you to set properties that affect how the annotation can be edited.

Learn more about annotation feature class editing properties.

The symbol collection lists the predefined text symbols you can assign to annotation features when creating or editing them in ArcMap.

Learn more about annotation in the geodatabase.

See Also

  • About annotation
  • Annotation in the geodatabase
  • Overview of creating annotation
  • Managing annotation feature classes
  • An overview of working with text