Labels inside polygon a set distance from boundary

Michele

I am using an abbreviation dictionary with my labels, however sometimes the label is too close to the polygon boundary so I'd like to set a "distance from the polygon boundary" threshold that the label will conform to or it will either decrease in size or use the abbreviation (set by the strategy order). I tried using the "measure offset from the feature geometry" but I don't see any difference. Am I doing something wrong or is there no way to do this?

Jesse Wickizer

There's not a specific Maplex setting for avoiding feature boundaries by a specified distance, but here's something you can try. If Overrun is set to 0, polygon labels will avoid overlapping the boundary. So you could add a thick stroke to your polygon features but then change the color to null so it's not actually visible. If you still want a narrow stroke to draw on the polygon features you can use multiple strokes - one that's narrow and displays on the map, and another that's thicker but invisible.

With the default symbology, the label extends near the polygon boundary:

 

When another stroke is added with 20pt width and no color, it causes the abbreviation strategy to activate, shortening the label:

 

While this works in this simple example, when other features and labels on the map are included the labeling engine may make other decisions that could place labels nearer the boundary if there's no other room. Experiment with this and see if it helps.