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I have a series of maps that require me to rotate my data frame within my layout screen (north "rarely" points up in these maps). I ONLY want to show east coordinates on the top/bottom and ONLY north coordinates on the sides (see image below). How do I do this? I would expect to see such an option when I go inside of properties menu under "grids", but I'm not having any luck. I'm using ArcView 10. Can anyone help? If I haven't articulated what I'm trying to accomplish very well, feel free to edit my question. Thanks in advance

enter image description here

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  • @ everyone - the only means I've found to get past this problem is to convert my grid to a graphic, select & ungroup it, and then to manually delete the tics & coordinates I want removed. NOT very efficient!! A better suggestion would be much appreciated. – Dano Jan 25 '12 at 21:18
  • any chance you do not have service pack 3 for arcgis10 installed? I had similar grid issues and once service pack 3 was installed it seemed to correct it. – sirgeo Jan 26 '12 at 21:02
  • No .... I have SP2. If ESRI has rolled out SP3 I imagine we'll be updating our software very soon though. I've just been converting to a graphic & deleting the UTM coordinates I want removed. There should be an option to only display X on the X-axis & Y on the Y-axis. It could see it being confusing to the average "non-GIS savvy" map reader (even though it's quite clear to us GIS-folk). – Dano Jan 27 '12 at 16:53
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I don't think a new release or service pack will resolve the issue, though you could always add it to ideas.arcgis.com and see what happens. Perhaps an alternative approach might work for you though: Add two grids, one with north-south only lines/labels and the other with east-west only and make each in a different style/font/colour.

This will address the concern of reader confusion without having to take data away (because a different sort of confusion arises when one traces a line to the neatline and there is no corresponding number).

close up of grids and labels intersecting neatline, each axis in a different colour

Caution: I crashed arcmap a couple of times by entering 0 into the axis interval field during the initial grid creation when using the wizard. No troubles editing the number to 0 afterwards though.

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  • +1 Matt - A feasible solution, and we actually discussed a similar approach at one point. There are no grid lines on these maps (far too busy with information) but we did discuss the possibility of using 2 different text colours as a means of differentating the Eastings from the Northings. I suspect (judging by the lack of feedback on my question) that this is the closest I'm going to get to the answer I wanted. That said, I've awarded this one to you. Cheers – Dano Feb 7 '12 at 15:40
  • @Dano, glad to help! I lean towards different styling (typeface/bold/italic) than differing colours, so as to keep more colour choices available for map items. I used colours in the graphic to exaggerate the point. – matt wilkie Feb 9 '12 at 5:21

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