Create labels for points, lines, and polygons. When creating a label, you must specify the label style you want to use as a template to format the label. Create, edit, and delete label styles as necessary.

Following are the basic steps for this workflow. For more detailed instructions, see Create and Edit Label Styles.

Steps:

Commands:

1.

To create a new line, point, or polygon label style, display the Label Style Manager dialog and do the following:

1. Select the appropriate tab for the type of label style you want to create.
2. Click the New button and enter a new Style name.
3. Complete the other Style Properties fields as appropriate.
4. In the Label Properties box, select properties as appropriate.
5. To Preview your changes at any time, click the Add button.
6. When you are done, click OK.

The new style can now be applied to a selected line, point, and/or polygon label. See step 2.

Note: You can label alignment points. Abbreviations for these points can be found by selecting Project Settings > Abbreviations > Key Horizontal Alignment Points.

Label Style Manager

Project Settings

2.

To create a new point label, display the Label Points command pane and do the following:

1. Select the appropriate Point label style and Layer for the label.
2. Optionally, enter a Rotation value for the label.
3. If the selected label style includes a point symbol that you want to change, either click the Symbol code edit button and select a different symbol, or enter a different Symbol size.
4. If the label includes attributes and you want them to display vertically in the label rather than horizontally, check the Display attributes vertically check box.
5. If the label includes attributes and you want the attribute values to display but not the attribute names, check the Do not display attribute name check box.
6. If the point is part of line and you want the label to be automatically rotated to align with the associated line segment (at 90º), check the Align label to associated line segment check box.
7. Click in the Select point to label field and then select one or more individual points you want to label immediately. Or, click in the Multi-select points to label field, select multiple points to label, and click the Add button.

Label Points

3.

To create a new line label, display the Label Lines command pane and do the following:

1. Select the appropriate Line label style and Layer for the label.
2. In the Minimum line length field, specify the minimum length of a line segment to which the label will be applied.
3. If you want to include selected line segments that are less than the minimum length in a label table, select the Add small segments to table check box, and, in the drop-down list, select the label table to which you want to add the segments, or select <<New ...>> to create a new label table.
4. To specify that the line direction (the direction in which the line was "drawn"; for example, from left to right) determine the "top" and "bottom" of the line for label placement, check the Keep line direction placement check box.
5. Click in the Select segment to label field and then select one or more individual line segments you want to label immediately. Or, click in the Multi-select lines to label field, select multiple line segments to label, and click the Add button.

Label Lines

4.

To create a new polygon label, display the Label Polygons command pane and do the following:

1. Select the appropriate Polygon label style and Layer for the label.
2. Optionally, enter a Rotation value for the label.
3. Click in the Select polygon to label field and then select one or more individual polygons you want to label immediately. Or, click in the Multi-select polygons to label field, select multiple polygons to label, and click the Add button.

Label Polygons

Note: To ensure that the size of dimensions or labels is correct when viewed in the Plan View, you must verify that the plot scale for the project is set correctly in Project Settings > View > Plan View. The plot scale is the factor used to convert from ground units to sheet units (ground units / plot scale = sheet units). For example, if the default plot scale of 600 m is used, an object with a length of 600 m in the Plan View will plot with a length of 1 m on paper. In survey feet, the default plot scale of 50 ft will plot as 1 foot on paper.