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Wildlife and Forestry Tools for ArcGIS Pro — Tool Reference
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Tool Reference › Cartography › North Arrows

North Arrows

Cartography · ribbon tool for layouts · by Jeff Jenness
Works at every ArcGIS Pro license level

Summary

Adds a north arrow to a layout, drawn with a picture chosen from a gallery on the ribbon. The gallery holds four compass designs that come with the add-in, and any images of your own that you have registered. The result is an ordinary ArcGIS Pro north arrow. It is tied to a map frame and it turns with the map, so it keeps pointing north when the map is rotated.

The north arrows in the gallery are simply ones I made for myself. I add them to my maps a lot, so I wanted an easy way to do it. Anyone is certainly welcome to use them. Many people, though, will probably want to create and register their own, ones that brand a map with their own cartographic signature.

The North Arrows button on the ribbon with its gallery open below it: four compass thumbnails under the heading Jenness Enterprises, then a heading My North Arrows with one thumbnail, a tall black arrow with a round maroon logo on it, which a blue arrow points to. Manage... is at the foot of the gallery
The North Arrows gallery. The four compass designs that come with the add-in are under Jenness Enterprises. A registered image is under My North Arrows.

Usage

A north arrow belongs to a layout, so a layout view must be active. In a map view the button is grayed out.

On the ribbon, North Arrows is a button over a gallery, in the Cartography group.

  1. Click the arrow under North Arrows to open the gallery, and click the north arrow you want.
  2. Click the layout where the north arrow should go. It is placed at a default size, one fifteenth of the longer side of the page, centered on the click.
  3. Or draw a box instead. The north arrow is fitted inside the box, centered, and it keeps its own proportions.

The new north arrow is left selected, so it can be moved or resized straight away.

Part of a layout showing a topographic map with green and yellow point symbols, and on it a north arrow: a tall black arrow pointing straight up with a round maroon logo, reading My Logo, on its shaft
A registered north arrow, just placed on a layout.

The north arrow is tied to the layout's map frame: the active map frame if there is one, otherwise the first map frame on the layout. If the layout has no map frame yet, the north arrow is added all the same, tied to no map frame. It can be tied to one later in the element's properties.

The button itself repeats the last choice. Click North Arrows, without opening the gallery, to place the same north arrow again. The choice is remembered from one session to the next. Until a north arrow has been chosen, the button places North arrow 1 - dot.

It turns with the map

This is the difference between a north arrow and a graphic. Rotate the map and the north arrow turns with it:

The Map Properties dialog on its General page, with the Rotation box set to 45.00
The map's rotation is set to 45 degrees in the Map Properties.
The same layout with the map turned 45 degrees: the place names now run diagonally and the north arrow points to the upper left, with its round logo turned with it
The north arrow has turned with the map, and still points north.

The whole picture turns, lettering and all. To place the same artwork as a picture that stays upright, use Add Graphics.

The north arrows that come with the add-in

A compass rose inside a black and white ring, with arrows to the main directions, a dark gray wedge to the north, a yellow wedge to the west and a turquoise wedge to the south, and a maroon disc at the hub
North arrow 1
The same compass rose with a black dot above its north point
North arrow 1 - dot
A plainer compass: a black four-pointed star over a gray four-pointed star, inside two thin rings
North arrow 2
The plainer compass with a slim spearhead above its north point
North arrow 2 - dot

These are the same four designs that Add Graphics places as pictures. Two of them have a mark above the north point: a dot on the first design, a spearhead on the second.

Your own north arrows

Any image of your own can be added to the gallery. Click Manage... at the foot of the gallery to open the Manage Custom Graphics and North Arrows window on its North Arrows tab, click Add Image... there, and browse to the image. PNG, JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, SVG and EMF files can be registered. Use an image type that can hold a transparent background (PNG, GIF, TIFF, SVG or EMF) if the north arrow should show nothing around it: a JPEG arrives with its background rectangle (see Transparent backgrounds). Register an image that is drawn with north pointing straight up, so that the arrow points the right way when the map is rotated.

The Manage Custom Graphics and North Arrows window on its North Arrows tab. The list shows four built-in north arrows under Jenness Enterprises and one under My North Arrows, named My_North_Arrow, which is selected. Its preview shows a tall black arrow with a round maroon logo on its shaft and a red crosshair on the center of the logo. The Focal point boxes read X 0.5 and Y 0.453
A north arrow registered in the Manage window. The crosshair has been moved onto the logo, which is below the middle of the image.

The Graphics and North Arrows tabs of that window keep separate lists. An image registered as a graphic is not offered as a north arrow until it is registered on the North Arrows tab too.

A circle behind the north arrow

A north arrow on a busy map is often easier to read on a plain background. The Circle Background tool draws a circle behind the selected north arrow and groups the two together.

By default the circle is centered on the middle of the north arrow. That is not always where it belongs. In the north arrow above, the logo sits below the middle, because the point above it is longer than the tail below it. A circle centered on the middle of the image would be off center from the logo.

This is what the focal point is for. In the Manage window, put the crosshair on the spot the circle should be centered on, as in the figure above. Every north arrow placed from that image then carries the focal point. When Circle Background is run on it, the dialog offers Center on the element's focal point (instead of its extent center). With that box checked, the circle is drawn around that spot:

The north arrow on the layout with a pale, partly transparent circle behind it. The circle is centered on the round logo, so the point of the arrow reaches well past the top of the circle and the tail just past the bottom
A circle background centered on the north arrow's focal point, the center of the logo.

The four designs that come with the add-in have their focal points on the hub of the compass.

Recommended citation

Jenness, J. 2026. North Arrows. Wildlife and Forestry Tools add-in for ArcGIS Pro, v. 1.113.62.1 (October 2026). Jenness Enterprises. Available at: https://github.com/JeffJenness/Wildlife_Tools.

Credits and references

By Jeff Jenness, Jenness Enterprises (www.jennessent.com).

The basemap under the maps in the figures on this page is Esri's USA Topo Maps basemap (copyright © 2013 National Geographic Society, i-cubed).

Licensing information

Works at every ArcGIS Pro license level (Basic, Standard, Advanced). No extension licenses are required.