Importing selected features as products

Available with Production Mapping license.

Another way to add products to a series, besides using the New Product dialog box, is to base the individual products on existing features from a feature class you have loaded into your table of contents. This process automates the creation of individual products, including instances, and areas of interest.

When you choose to create products this way, you need to decide which field is going to be used as the name of the individual map document.

1. Start ArcMap.
2. Select one or more features you want to include as products in your product library.

   Tip:

   You can only select area (polygon) features from one feature layer loaded in the Table Of Contents window.

3. If necessary, open the Product Library window by clicking Customize > Production > Product Library on the main menu.

   A tree view of the product library appears.

   

4. If necessary, expand Product Library and Products.
5. Navigate to and right-click the series for which you want to add products and click Batch Import New Products.

   The Batch Import New Products dialog box appears.

6. Click the Product drop-down arrow and choose the field you want to use to determine each product's name.

   Tip:

   The name is limited to 230 characters. Special characters such as the ampersand (&) or colon (:) are not valid entries.

   The field you choose needs to have values that are unique for each of the features you have selected. For example, if you are creating maps or charts based on state counties, the field that contains the county name could be used for the individual products.

7. Uncheck the Copy feature class attributes to product library check box if you do not want the fields and attributes from the selected layer copied to the product library tables.

   Note:

   This option is only enabled when the product library workspace is a personal or file geodatabase, or when you have administrator product library permissions in an enterprise geodatabase.

8. If necessary, choose the Allow multiple instances per product option.

   The Product Instance drop-down list becomes available.

9. Click the Product Instance drop-down arrow and choose the field you want to use to determine each instance's name.
10. Click OK.

A dialog box appears with the progress.

11. If necessary, click OK when the process completes.

The products are created based on the area (polygon) features selected in your map.