topic Re: Rotating labels in ArcGIS Online Questions

Rotating labels

DavidStockdale — Sat, 16 Nov 2019 19:32:13 GMT

I have a point dataset of streets in a housing development, which I overlaid on the world imagery basemap. There is a street name field for labeling. I need to have the north-south street labels oriented vertically, 90 degrees, and the east-west street labels oriented horizontally, 0 degrees. Is there an Arcade expression that will do that? Thank you.

Re: Rotating labels

XanderBakker — Mon, 18 Nov 2019 16:25:06 GMT

Hi David Stockdale ,

Currently there is no rotation for labels in the web map of ArcGIS Online. There is an update of the web map that is coming soon, but I haven't seen the label options yet.

Re: Rotating labels

AndyYang — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 01:51:55 GMT

Hi @XanderBakker , does ArcGIS online map have rotating label feature now?

I still could not get my annotations rotated even I tried on the new Beta WebMap viewer.

Can ArcGIS somehow develop this feature real quick. It has been lacking this feature for at least one year according to the forum post.

Re: Rotating labels

AndyYang — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 01:55:38 GMT

Hi @DavidStockdale

Same here.

I was struggling to get the text rotated.

What I did is to publish text as the vector tile layer so it will rotate as image.

but the serious problem is that they will be blocked by other feature layers on top.

Vector tile layers will be forced to sit at the bottom... so unfortunate

I am hoping Esri can quickly develop a way to resolve this...

Re: Rotating labels

XanderBakker — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 20:31:22 GMT

Hi @AndyYang ,

I am sorry to tell you that I have no influence on the order of items on the backlog. I agree that it would be great to be able to rotate labels in the web map. What is your specific use case?

Re: Rotating labels

AndyYang — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 20:52:05 GMT

Hello @XanderBakker

Thanks for your reply - our use case is just displaying the civil engineering site plan on the web browser.

It does not look very decent if those labels are either not rotated or being blocked by other layers.

Re: Rotating labels

XanderBakker — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 21:15:50 GMT

Hi @AndyYang

Thanks for explaining and I noticed the image you shared below. I see why it is important to be able to rotate the labels. The Beta Map Viewer allows you to rotate the map, but to align the map rotation so that a single label aligns with the related line is not something that will work.

Re: Rotating labels

AndyYang — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 22:05:07 GMT

Hi @XanderBakker

Thanks for clarifying.

I am not intending to rotate the map/basemap, rather I am very keen to rotate the text labels.

Within the ArcGIS Pro software - it does have Label Properties - Rotation setting under Position tab, reading the "TxtAngle" into the Rotation Field. The outcome looks very good and that is what we want.

But this just does not work after publishing onto Esri Webmap.

I hope BETA Webmap development team can take this feature into consideration.

Re: Rotating labels

SamJakson — Thu, 17 Jun 2021 11:01:09 GMT

Has there been any update on this yet? Many of my customers request the ability to rotate text created with the drawing widget. Would you be able to provide me with a rough timeframe of when this will be implemented?

Re: Rotating labels

Stefan_Thorn — Thu, 02 Dec 2021 15:42:54 GMT

Hi @AndyYang,

What you can do to have the labels on top (of all layers). I did something similar with wheel/edges symbols which I published as a map image layer to show certain status on data in related tables.

left: the wheel symbols are only visible when no other features are blocking

right: the wheel symbols are visible

1. vector tile layer: ' Move to the basemap'

2. then, choose 'Set as Reference Layer'

Re: Rotating labels

Stefan_Thorn — Thu, 02 Dec 2021 16:20:56 GMT

Hi @XanderBakker The rotation of labels is simple in ArcGIS Pro and even with Arcade the appearance can be manipulated but all this effort is useless after publishing to AGOL you left with plain labels.

Publishing to a tile layer is not an option because the dataset contains multiple records. And after publishing to AGOL the hosted feature layer is used in a joined view to visualize a projectplanning with time slider.

In ArcGIS Pro 2.8.3

I show highways and which lanes are closed. With an arcade expression I can give the label multiple colors related to an attribute. And the position of the label is perpendicular repeated and aligned based on the direction of the polyline. I this situation it is important that the polylines have the same direction of the traffic flow.

In ArcGIS Online

Classic Viewer

- the arcade expression in not accepted. So why Arcade in ArcGIS pro is different from AGOL?

- in classic viewer the label can be aligned but very basic: Above, On or Below the polyline

Map Viewer

- the arcade expression in not accepted.

- labels can cannot be aligned anymore?

Re: Rotating labels

XanderBakker — Fri, 03 Dec 2021 21:48:22 GMT

Hi @Stefan_Thorn

- the arcade expression is not accepted. So why Arcade in ArcGIS pro is different from AGOL?

- the arcade expression is not accepted.

- labels cannot be aligned anymore?

Unfortunately, there are differences in Arcade versions as you can find in the version matrix: https://developers.arcgis.com/arcade/guide/version-matrix/ . In this case, it is not the version difference, but the fact that the labels in a web map currently do not support these HTML-like capabilities that allow you to change the font of parts of the label. Next week there will be an update and many changes are coming to the map viewer (not the Map Viewer Classic). There are some changes that allow you to edit HTML for the pop-up, but I do not know if this changes something for the font settings that you are using in Pro.
in the Map viewer labels can be aligned already. You will find the placement options when you edit the style:
Not sure if the new version will have label rotation.

Re: Rotating labels

Stefan_Thorn — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 12:48:30 GMT

Hi @XanderBakker,

Thank you for the quick reply! I will look into the arcade matrix and looking forward to the new updates.

But unfortunately, the placement option to align the label is not available when I open Edit Style.

(I am working in a Project Delivery Site and tested in Chrome or Edge)

Re: Rotating labels

XanderBakker — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 14:00:29 GMT

Hi @Stefan_Thorn ,

Sorry about that, but the alignment options will only be available for point data.

Re: Rotating labels

Stefan_Thorn — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 12:33:17 GMT

Hi @XanderBakker

I saw there is an minor update for labels, allow overrun and repeat labels. And unfortunately, I had to make an extra feature layer to show labels perpendicular on the line and uses overrun to show also when zoomed out. Using two label classes to show the X in red and the O in green is not an option either because these labels will overlap.

hopefully new labelling options will be available soon.

Re: Rotating labels

BillLotz — Tue, 07 Jun 2022 15:34:48 GMT

Wow, I am looking at migrating from Enterprise to AGOL, but the limitations in AGOL are a big hurdle. I converted annotation to features since annotation is not supported. Got everything to display in ArcGIS Pro using Arcade. Labels sized and rotated based on field from the old annotation features. Unfortunately none of that stuff is supported in AGOL.

It seems the limitations are almost to great, let me know when the bugs are worked out!

Re: Rotating labels

PeterMacKenzie2 — Fri, 23 Sep 2022 01:01:05 GMT

here is an idea to vote for...

https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-online-ideas/rotate-labels-for-points-in-arcgis-online/m-p/1215361#M9358

Re: Rotating labels

vg11 — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 21:35:00 GMT

checking in from the future..... i guess there still isn't an option to rotate the label but there is an option to rotate the symbol... i don't need to rotate the symbol of a circle! i must rotate and orient the position of the label. i thought AGOL was created to replace ArcReader, why does it lack in soooo many areas.

Re: Rotating labels

ChelseaRozek — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 17:47:51 GMT

also checking in from the future... nearly 5 years after the original post and i still don't see an option to rotate labels in ArcGIS Online

Re: Rotating labels

vg11 — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 15:07:41 GMT

pretty sure Esri will never fix this because this is their selling point to use tile layers.