Create symbology from multiple layers

Question

I have four different polygons of soil data that encompass overlapping geographical areas. There is also some overlap of soil series, but each has a few unique ones:

• Polygon A has Series A, B, C
• Polygon B has Series A, C, D
• Polygon C has Series A, B, D, E
• Polygon D has Series A, E, F, G

Right now, each of them is symbolized based only on that polygon, meaning I've got different colors for the same soils in different maps.

My goal is consistent symbology for all the layers so each series always has the same color. The end product is about eight maps, and I need the same representation for all.

Since no layer encompasses the entire soil range, however, I can't copy symbology from any layer to the others without some soils being absent. To make it even more annoying, the different polygons have different naming structures for the soil types (some are abbreviated, some are broken down into additional detail [e.g. sandy clay loam vs. sandy loam], etc.).

Is there any way in ArcMap (10.1) to create a symbology from multiple layers/features at once, to cover all possible categories A though G?

Answer 1

You can create a symbology of unique values for a layer without actually having a value occur in the dataset. you could use 'group values' (ctrl+select values and right click) to take all the possible values that indicate category 'A' in any given file. This way, you could have a single symbology that covers all possibilities from each dataset without having duplicates show up in a legend