Business Analyst basemap labels cover my features

SaraBowers1

I'm making a simple map of an area with some points that I geocoded, and added symbols. I am using the basemap layers from Business Analyst, and BA's road labels are covering up my symbols. My points are above the BA layers in the TOC and I have updated the feature weight for my points several times to greater values, but BA's road labels always overlap my symbols somewhere on the map. Is there a way to move the road labels off my symbols without changing the labels to annotation and moving them manually? The attached image shows three points partially covered by the road labels.

SusanZwillinger

Hi Sara,

You are correct that you need to change the feature weight for your point layer.  However, in order to avoid overlap completely, the value that you need to use is 1000.  

This is how I typically set this:

You can also set the feature weight from the Layer Properties-->Labels tab-->Placement Properties-->Conflict Resolution tab:

This should solve your problem.

As a side note, you may also notice that sometimes when you use a large symbol for your point layer, the labels for the point layer may be overlapping the point.  To fix this issue, you would use Layer Properties-->Labels tab-->Placement Properties-->Label Offset ...-->Measure offset from the exact symbol outline option.

I have found the the above solution works better than increasing the label buffer percentage (and/or setting this as a hard constraint) in the Label Density tab of Placement Properties.  I have often wondered whether this may make your labels draw a bit slower since you are increasing the amount of computation required to calculate the label placement, but I have never tested that.

Regards,

-Susan-