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I need my script to change the font size of a text element if the string is too long to fit in the title section of the map. I've looked into it using Arcpy, but haven't had any luck. Does anyone know how to do this?

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1 Answer

up vote 6 down vote accepted

Code:

import arcpy
mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument("CURRENT")
elmWidth = 4.0
elmText = '<dyn type="document" property="title"/>'
elm = arcpy.mapping.ListLayoutElements(mxd, "TEXT_ELEMENT", "MapTitle")[0]
x = 100
elm.text = '<FNT name="Arial" size="' + str(x) + '">' + elmText + '</FNT>'
while elm.elementWidth > float(elmWidth):
    elm.text = '<FNT name="Arial" size="' + str(x) + '">' + elmText + '</FNT>'
    x = x - 1
arcpy.RefreshActiveView()
del mxd

Source: (Example 3) http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#//00s30000000m000000.htm

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Thank you so much. Your answer is much better than I was hoping to find. It is exactly what I needed. – Tanner Sep 5 '10 at 20:33
This is great but it is to bad that arcpy does not allow us to actually change the font style just add an html wrapper around it. It could be so much easier if an mxd was plain text like a mapinfo wor file where this kind of edit is easy...i still prefer ArcGIS though :-) – GeorgeC Nov 6 '11 at 22:56

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