Create a collection of textual legal descriptions for cadastral survey projects that include parcels (created with the Create COGO command) and/or polygons, or closed linework.

Following are the basic steps for this workflow. For more detailed instructions, see Create Legal Descriptions.

Steps:

Commands:

1.

Display the Legal Description Writercommand pane and then select the Template file you want to use for the creation of the legal descriptions.

You can select the read-only <Default> template, which is based on the DefaultLegalDescriptionTemplate.xml file installed with TBC, or you can select a previously created template.

Legal Description Writer

2.

Click in the Select path segments field and then select one or more starting points for the legal descriptions.

Each starting point you select can be either a Point of Commencement (a control point that is not on any of the parcel/polygon boundaries' vertices but instead is located away from the parcels/polygons, as in the case of a survey marker in the middle of an intersection) or a Point of Beginning (a vertex point on a parcel/polygon boundary).

When a Point of Commencement start point is used, the legal description starts with a Point of Commencement phrase, followed later in the description by a Point of Beginning phrase. When a Point of Beginning start point is used, the legal description starts with a Point of Beginning phrase.

3.

If you selected a Point of Commencement for a starting point, click in the Select path segments field, and then select the line segments that connect the starting point to a Point of Beginning vertex point on each of the parcels or polygons to be included in the legal description.

4.

Click in the Select parcels field and then select each of the the parcels/polygons you want to include in the description.

5.

Optionally, uncheck the Use only node-to-node misclosures check box to ease the description-writer rules and allow temporary nodes to be created at line intersections to create the shortest path to a parcel when a gap in the linework exists, instead of requiring the path to use existing vertex nodes.

6.

If you selected all or a subset of all of the line segments, allowing the software to calculate the shortest path from a Point of Commencement to each parcel, click and hold the Show Calculated Path button to display the calculated paths.

7.

Select the appropriate Parcel Direction:

• Clockwise - The legal description follows a clockwise path around the parcel or polygon.
• Counterclockwise - The legal description follows a counterclockwise path around the parcel or polgon.

8.

Click the Edit / Preview button to display the Description Template dialog, which allows you preview the legal descriptions based on your settings and selections in the Legal Description command pane and, if necessary, make manual edits to the descriptions or modify the selected Legal Description template. For complete instructions see "Preview a Legal Description and Edit Templates" in the online Help.

9.

When you are done previewing and, if necessary, editing the legal descriptions using the Description Template Editor, select the appropriate Output option:

10.

Click the Output Browse button to name the output file and specify a location to store it.

11.

Click the Apply button.

12.

If you selected the RTF format, in the Convert File dialog, click OK.

The new document file opens in a text editor window. If necessary, you can make additional edits to the content or formatting of the document.