I have the following code. I want to see if a layer name exists within a map document, not if the shapefile exists in the directory. If I copy paste into the python window within ArcMap works fine. IE. Prints: True

If I run the program as a stand-alone script it does not work? Prints False when should print True
I have code the sets up the mxd and dataframe.

```
if arcpy.Exists("project_aoa") == True:
    print("TRUE")
elif arcpy.Exists("project_aoa") == False:
    print("FALSE")

```

These layers are withing a group layer should this matter?

project\_aoa is a shapefile.

EDITED:

I ended up doing this:

```
for item in mxds:
    mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument(r"{0}".format(item))
    df=arcpy.mapping.ListDataFrames(mxd,"Project Area")[0]

    for lyr in arcpy.mapping.ListLayers(mxd, "project_aoa", df):
        if lyr.name == "project_aoa":
            print("True")
        else:
            print ("False")

```