Tips and Tricks for Sharing Print Tools from ArcGIS Pro

September 27, 2019

Nicole Gamble

Interested in customizing your print services and publishing it to ArcGIS Enterprise? This post will give an overview of how to publish a custom print service from ArcGIS Pro, highlight new functionality starting at 10.6.1 and provide a few tips along the way. Get ready to create a custom print service like a pro!

Print tools, also known as print services, can be published from either ArcMap or ArcGIS Pro to ArcGIS Enterprise. Now, as of Enterprise 10.6.1 and above, you get access to the newest functionality if you share your print service from ArcGIS Pro.

Some examples of this include:

The ability to print hosted vector tile layers
Improved capabilities for smart mapping and colour transparency
The ability to publish print services with custom layout templates created using ArcGIS Pro

If you don’t need to customize your print service at all, the ArcGIS Server default print service also has this functionality at 10.6.1 and above.

Used to publishing your print services from ArcMap? Never fear! Here are some steps and tips for sharing your print service from ArcGIS Pro.

The general steps breakdown is as follows:

Create a custom layout and export it as a layout template (.pagx)
Register your layout templates folder with ArcGIS Server
Run the Export Web Map and Get Layout Templates Info geoprocessing tools
Share your results as a web tool from ArcGIS Pro

If you want a detailed step-by-step walk through of this process, there is a great tutorial in the ArcGIS Enterprise documentation that you can follow.

Here are a few more tips and considerations to keep in mind when creating your service and sharing it from ArcGIS Pro.

How will your print tool be used?

Are you creating a custom print tool you want to be the default in all portal maps and apps? In that case, you can configure it as a utility service in your portal settings.

Alternatively, if you have a very specific use in mind, you could leverage it in a specific web app by using the print widget for Web AppBuilder.

Check your execution mode

If you plan to use your print service in the ArcGIS Enterprise portal, set the execution mode to synchronous. This is required for some functionality; such as configuring your service as the portal’s print utility service. In some cases, you may want to choose asynchronous, such as if you are printing very detailed maps and expect the tool to take more than a few seconds.

When sharing your print tool from Pro, you can find the execution mode under the configuration tab.

Unsure which mode it’s currently set to on an existing service? You can check this in ArcGIS Server Manager under the service parameters:

You can publish a print service to standalone ArcGIS Server from Pro 2.4

As of Pro 2.4 it is possible to publishing a geoprocessing service (which includes print services) to a standalone ArcGIS Server 10.6 or higher with the built-in tools. In Pro 2.3 this is also possible but requires the use of python.

To do this, make a new ArcGIS Server connection in ArcGIS Pro. Once the connection is created, right click on it, go to properties and change the connection type to an administrator connection.

If this is greyed out, check if the user you are connecting with has administrator privileges in ArcGIS Server.

Next, run Export Web Map and Get Layout Templates Info in ArcGIS Pro to create a geoprocessing result. Once that is done, right click on your ArcGIS Server connection and go to publish, then select geoprocessing service and choose your geoprocessing result.

If you run into any problems on sharing your geoprocessing result, take a look at the documentation on sharing a geoprocessing service.

If you are going to be publishing a print service to standalone ArcGIS Server, one thing you will need to consider is if you will be using it to print secured services or not. The documentation on printing secured services covers some of the implications of this depending on your security model.

Start simple

If you’re running into a problem or error with your custom print tool, start by trying to print with the default Printing Tools service, located in the Utilities folder for ArcGIS Server. If that works, start adding more functionality a little at a time, so you can more easily narrow down the source of the problem.

As always, if you run into any problems or have questions that are not answered by the documentation, don’t hesitate to reach out to technical support – we’re here to help!