Esri Mapping Center - Ask a Cartographer

How do I change strategy order in Label Placement Properties?

December 16 2011 | 2 comments
Categories: Labeling, Maplex

This has me extremely confused: I am trying to label the counties in a new map and the letter spacing changes in an effort to fit the labels in the county boundaries. I do not want this. The option to Compress Labels in Width the Character Spacing options are greyed-out so that I can't select them.

I have another map that has the labels like I want (on the identical feature class), but the Placement Properties window is different. I am attaching screen shots to show the two differing Placement Properties windows.

I suspect that the first map has a Labeling Style set to it, but I do not know what style would give me the options that the second (preferred) map has or how to remove a Style altogether.

I am using ArcDesktop 10 (ArcView license)and do not have MapPlex.

Thank You,

Mapping Center Answer:

Your 'problem map' in the picture is using Maplex but because you do not have Maplex ArcMap has used the settings but placed them in read-only mode. To fix this, revert to the standard label engine and the options will be available for you to modify the letter spacing and other parameters.

Attachment: Screen shots showing differing Label Placement Property windows for two maps.

Thank you posted by Lillian Huffman on Dec 19 2011 7:03AM

Thank you. I thought it would be something simple that I was missing. The map had been started by someone else before I began work here, so I did not know it had been developed from a template with Maplex enabled. Thanks for your help.

Happy to help! posted by Aileen Buckley on Feb 15 2012 12:50PM

Glad you are all set now!

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