Creating a rectangle

[DaneCarlson1]

Hi all--

I am trying to create a rectangle in ArcGIS Pro (the application) and totally failing.  I hesitate to ask here because I know the instructions are online, but please understand that I have been sitting here for two hours reading the instructions, trying and failing, rereading, etc etc in a continuous cycle.  All I'm trying to do is clip a bunch of really, really big shapefiles to a rectangle that I have to make.  I've opened the create features tab under edit, but it's empty.  I don't understand the relationship between feature classes and features.  Perhaps I'm wrong but this whole process seems so convoluted that I am just shaking with frustration.  If someone could kindly give me a step by step on how to create a rectangle and make it into a layer (I have the clip part under control) it would be so, so appreciated.  Thank you so very much for your help, understanding, and patience with an idiot.

Best-

Dane.

[MervynLotter]

Hi Dane

I am on the road so difficult to reply in detail, but I had a similar

problem but solution is very easy.

With the create features side panel active, open the templates window and

there is an option to define the editing tools for that layer. Here you

simply click on the boxes that would activate drawing tools such as

rectangles, circles, etc.

I am not sure why they are not all activated by default.

Good luck.

[DaneCarlson1]

Thank you Mervyn--

I figured how to add rectangles within a layer, but have no idea how to make a rectangle on its own, separate layer.  I don't want to work within a layer that has existing features, I just need to make a rectangle on its own layer to act as a clipping mask.  Any ideas about that?  Thanks so much for your time and help.

Dane

[MervynLotter]

Hi Dane

So you would need to create a new shapefile or geodatabase feature, and

then to this add rectangles.

To do so you can run the Create Features Class geoprocessing tool. If you

to not direct output to a geodatabase, then the new file will be a

shapefile.

Cheers