A number of you have written in to Ask a Cartographer wishing to know how to convert your font-based or EMF-based marker symbols to representation markers. Representation markers (introduced in ArcGIS 9.2) have a number of advantages over font- or graphics-based markers.  For example, you can create or edit their artwork while working in ArcMap or ArcCatalog, and they can be used the geoprocessing framework. One geoprocessing tool engineered to work with cartographic representations which you might find particularly useful is the Detect Graphic Conflict tool, which tells you where the symbols on your map overlap one another. But first, many of you may need to convert a significant number of markers into representation markers.

Until recently I was doing this the hard way, one marker at a time; dragging my feet about writing a blog entry that would advocate such a tedious procedure. While verifying that you will need at least an ArcEditor license to create representation markers I learned from the ESRI development team that they had created a developer sample that would convert the marker symbols into representation markers in a style. The download for that sample includes a compiled executable file (.exe) that is ready to use.

This tool will convert font- and EMF-based marker symbols into representation markers. Once you have representation markers in a style you can easily assign them to layers that use representation symbology. More importantly, once you have assigned your symbols they will become part of your geodatabase schema, allowing them to be shared with or without your data. Use the Export XML Workspace Document tool in ArcCatalog to produce an XML file that can be imported as the schema for a new database.