Labels

You can choose to display labels on your map to help with identification of the various parts. Typically the labels could be the name of the country or continent, the abbreviation usually used for a given country, the name of a road or installation, and so on. A list of label types is proposed (if available) when you select the Labeling property of a layer in the Map Style Property Sheet.

The label types for a given layer are contained in the map data and are reflected in the list. When you add labels to a layer for the first time, a Labels layer is created in the Map Layers pane.

The following figure shows an example of a map with NAME labels for countries.

For more information, see Displaying labels.

Labels sublayers give you the possibility to label each vector layer differently. For example, the labels can be:

In addition, it is important to distinguish the visible differences between road, motorway, and state or county labels to make the map more readable. You can do this by setting the font size, fill color, whether the outline is drawn, and if so what the outline color will be. See Using the map style property sheet and Setting sublayer properties for more information on how to use the Property Sheet.

Each time you set the Labeling property for a displayed data source containing label information, a Labels for: sublayer is created in the Map Layers pane under the Labels layer. You can then specify the style of labeling for each Labels sublayer using the corresponding Property Sheet.

The order of the Labels sublayers in the hierarchy defines the priority of the labeling. When the labeling is performed, the labeler places as many labels as possible on the first layer in the hierarchy, and then considers the placement of labels on the next Labels sublayer, and so on.

You can then specify the priority of the labeling by reordering the Labels sublayers. This enables you to distinguish between the labeling layers more easily and prevent the view becoming too complex. Note that the layer with the highest priority is situated at the bottom of the stack.

The following figure shows an example of customized Labels sublayers.

For more information, see Displaying labels.