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I want to draw a simple dashed line with an arrow at the end in QGIS.

What I tried:

  • Using QGIS Arrow option to make an arrow but that made the arrow a polygon and I didn't find a way to change the line portion to dashed.
  • I edited the arrow created in QGIS to remove the line and leave just the head portion.
  • I added another style below as a simple line and made that thicker and dashed.

enter image description here

I now have a dashed line with an arrow head at the end but The tip of the arrow starts at the line endcap so I can see the line protruding in front of the arrow. I can fiddle with x and y offsets but it seems a bit ammeter, I believe there must be a better way.

Line protruding past arrow head

Any suggestions to accomplish this in a clean way?

1 Answer 1

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The way I like to do lines with arrows is to use a Simple Line and a Marker Line, like this: enter image description here

Set the Simple Line symbology the same way you have it so it is dashed.

for the Marker Line set the Marker placement to 'on last vertex only', check the 'Rotate marker to follow line direction' box:

enter image description here

For the actual Marker Symbol I like to set it to SVG Marker and pick something from the Arrows folder. Then set the rotation to 90 degrees (if needed) and then use the Offet values to push the symbol out past the line cap if you need to:

enter image description here

Then go back to the parent symbology (Line) and click Save Symbol on the bottom right and check Add to favourites to use it later.

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  • Thank you for such detailed explanation. I notice in the end you'd end up with something similar to what I got still having to use the offset x,y to push the head around. I will give this method a shot. I notice that I could also draw the arrows on the print layout. Not sure what would be pros and cons on doing it there versus on the map? Mar 30, 2021 at 8:55

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