Remove SLC

Cartography · Cartographic Helpers · ribbon tool · by Jeff Jenness

Works at every ArcGIS Pro license level

Summary

Moves the Service Layer Credits text out of the map frame on a layout, with one click.

Esri introduced the service layer credits in ArcMap 10.1. They are a terrific way to make sure you cite and credit your source data without lifting a finger: when a map uses a basemap or another web service, ArcGIS prints the service's credits in a corner of the map frame, and it does so without even asking. If you like them, then by all means keep them. Citing your sources is both ethical and courteous to the people who created the data. The citation does not have to sit on the map itself, though. A credit in the caption, or in the text of the document that carries the map, serves the same purpose; that is how the figures on these help pages credit their basemaps.

This automatic text has not been universally popular, though. Many people were upset that Esri had decided to add text of its own, unasked for, to a carefully made map, and more upset because the text was so ugly and intrusive, printed over whatever part of the map happened to lie in that corner.

A layout's map frame showing a topographic map around Winslow, Arizona, with green and yellow point symbols. In the lower right corner of the map frame, printed over the map, is the text: Sources: Esri, TomTom, Garmin, FAO, NOAA, USGS, copyright OpenStreetMap contributors, and the GIS User Community. The text is circled in blue — Before: the credits that ArcGIS Pro has printed in the corner of the map frame, over the map (circled). The basemap is Esri's USA Topo Maps (copyright © 2013 National Geographic Society, i-cubed).

There are ways to get rid of it yourself. Both start the same way: add a Service Layer Credits dynamic text element to the layout. As soon as that element exists, the credits go into it instead of the map frame, and the element is yours to style and move. You can then set its text to be transparent, or drag it off the page. All this tool does is automate the second of those. It turns the text that ArcGIS Pro has stuck in your map into a movable dynamic text element and parks it just below the layout page, where it does not print or export with the map.

The same map frame with its corner clear of text. Below the page, on the gray area outside it, sits the credits text, now reading: Sources: Esri, TomTom, Garmin, FAO, NOAA, USGS, copyright OpenStreetMap contributors, and the GIS User Community, Copyright: copyright 2013 National Geographic Society, i-cubed — After: the map frame is clear, and the credits are a dynamic text element parked below the page. Off the page, they are not exported with the map.

To have the credits back in their original form, select the Service Layer Credits element and delete it. The credits reappear in their original place in the map frame.

How it works

ArcGIS Pro draws the credits inside the map frame only when the layout has nowhere else to put them. If the layout contains a Service Layer Credits dynamic text element, the credits go there. The tool adds that element to the layout and parks it just below the page: its top edge is half an inch below the bottom of the page and its left edge is flush with the left side of the page. The element is a text box as wide as the page and one inch tall, set in 8-point black Tahoma, and it is named Service Layer Credits in the Contents pane. The credits are still part of the layout, but they are off the page, so they do not print or export, and the map frame is clear.

If the layout already has a Service Layer Credits element, the tool moves that one to the same spot, wherever it was, and does not add a second. Running the tool twice does no harm.

Usage

Open the layout and click Remove SLC. There is no dialog. The button is available only when a layout view is active.

The Cartography Tools gallery open on the ribbon, with the Remove SLC button, in the Cartographic Helpers row, outlined in blue — Where to find it: **Remove SLC** is in the *Cartographic Helpers* row of the *Cartography Tools* gallery, in the Cartography group of the *Wildlife and Forestry* tab.

To put the credits somewhere visible instead, select the Service Layer Credits element in the Contents pane, then drag it onto the page or set its position in its properties.

You should still cite your sources! Moving the text off the page hides it from the printed or exported layout, but it does not remove the obligation to give credit. Esri's terms of use for static maps, for example, say that “you must provide attribution on or near your map or image that includes an ArcGIS Online map hosted by Esri.” Check the terms of the services you use, and put the credits where they are required: on the map, in its caption, or in the text of the document that carries it. Esri's guidance on citing its basemaps gives the credit line for each basemap and a format for a reference list.

Recommended citation

Jenness, J. 2026. Remove SLC. 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).

Esri. 2026. USA Topo Maps [basemap]. ArcGIS Online, Esri, Redlands, California. arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=99cd5fbd98934028802b4f797c4b1732. Accessed on 18 October 2026.

Licensing information

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

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