Annotation class draw order or priority in ArcGIS Pro

Question

Is it possible to set the draw order or priority for Annotation classes? We have a class of parcel number annotations that are a half circle with a white box underneath (probably not the best but it's what we've got for now), and they cover up other annotations. It doesn't seem to be consistent, but is there a way to prevent this, maybe by forcing them to draw under other annotation classes?

Robert_LeClair · Answer

A little more digging...ArcMap annotation feature classes also have this ZOrder value but it too is not used.  So it seems this workflow will not work sadly.  Second, I looked at the internals and there was a request for an Enhancement Request to do just this but it appears not to have been created for whatever reason.  My suggestion would be to create an ArcGIS Ideas idea on the use of ZOrder to prioritize drawing of annotation features in a feature class.

Not a solution I know but it's what I've found.

AndrewWallick · Answer

That's a really cool use! Unfortunately I just tried and it didn't seem to work for me. I have two annotations that were overlapping (just like the screenshot in my original post), and changed the acreage ZOrder to 1. Then I changed the parcel number ZOrder to 0, applied the change, and when the map updated it was covering up the acreage. I then changed the parcel number ZOrder to 2, applied the change, but it was still covering the acreage.

Maybe there's a different way to do it? Do you have a link to where the other users were discussing this?

Robert_LeClair · Answer

I understand where you're coming from - 13 different annotation feature classes are a lot!  I dug down a little deeper and found a suggestion that you may want to try.  In the ArcGIS Pro help documenation for Fields, it mentions the Zorder is "unused at this time" BUT it seems users have selected the annotation feature, brought up the Attributes Pane and changed the Zorder value of 0 to 1 or 2 to control ordering.  I'd suggest trying this workflow to see if it controls the order of your annotation.