idea Adding support of annotation in vector tile packages. in ArcGIS Pro Ideas

Adding support of annotation in vector tile packages.

XiaoyanMu — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 19:51:01 GMT

Adding support of annotation in vector tile packages. This idea is submitted on behalf of one of our important customers.

We know that labels are now supported in vector tile packages, but my client thinks it is not enough for their current work. For example, when the data comes from AutoCAD, the DWG annotations will be imported as annotation feature class, which are hardly converted to labels stored in feature attribute perfectly . So , this requirement comes.

Re: Adding support of annotation in vector tile packages.

StevenGonzalez1 — Wed, 11 Jul 2018 16:24:26 GMT

Agreed.

I've spent a bit of time looking for work-arounds, like converting the annotation to a feature class with the 'FeatureOutlineMasks' function in the cartography toolbox; however, am unable to apply symbolody from the annotation features or layer files created from said annotation features.

Anybody else find a work around?

Re: Adding support of annotation in vector tile packages.

WillAnderson — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 18:51:18 GMT

Same subpar workaround here.

Re: Adding support of annotation in vector tile packages.

Anonymous User — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 09:14:41 GMT

I have the same issue. I have been working with Feature Outline Mask aswell, which first looks fine, but my problem is that when creating the vector tile package, the display quality of the converted annotations gets so bad, proportionally to an increased complexity/number of other polygons surrounding the text-polygon. The vector tile package is generalizing too much for the font to display nicely, especially when zoomed out. With a bigger zoom the problem vanished. anyone has any clues how to solve this issue?

Re: Adding support of annotation in vector tile packages.

DanGriffin — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 20:54:25 GMT

Currently, we're publishing annotation as a raster tile layer. It's time-consuming and takes up a lot of file storage space. We also tried exporting the annotation with feature to feature geoprocessing, specifying the output as shapefile. This creates polygons in place of the annotation and maintains the attribute table with the font, size, rotation, etc.. The problem is there's no way to label based on definitions in a table!

Re: Adding support of annotation in vector tile packages.

Scott_Stopyak — Mon, 07 Aug 2023 14:14:44 GMT

I'm trying to publish land parcels to vector tiles. Labeling does work but the output is bad. The label rotation is goofy and there are lots of duplicates. I've tried with both label engines and a variety of label settings. Nothing yields acceptable labeling where it looks anywhere near as good as it does in Pro. I'm hoping this will be a priority. Having to build a county-size raster tile cache just to get good map annotation is ridiculous given the processing time, inherent instability of cooking tiles and the storage required.

Re: Adding support of annotation in vector tile packages.

NickN — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 15:58:28 GMT

Add me to the list of people desiring annotation support in vector tiles. We're also wanting to publish parcel fabric dimensions and labeling is not good, and raster tile caches just take way too long to update.

Re: Adding support of annotation in vector tile packages.

RobertKGarst — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 17:06:49 GMT

Our office has similar needs to include annotation into a Vector Tile Package. Parcel dimensions and lot do not label correctly from a VTPK, often duplicating even though the source map labels print correctly. As Mr. Griffin stated above, we are handling this with raster tiles, but it is not nearly as efficient for time or storage.

Re: Adding support of annotation in vector tile packages.

SStopyak_BruceHarris — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 18:13:00 GMT

My current workaround for polygon labels (like parcels) is to:

Use the Calculate Polygon Main Angle tool to add the main angle as an attribute "Angle".
Use the Calculate Geometry Attributes tool to add calculated acreage as an attribute.
Use the Feature to Point tool to export the polygon centroids to points.
Label the points using the "Angle" field for rotation.
Setup the points with label classes based on the calculated acreage field. For example, small, medium, large parcels (well, parcel points now) have different label classes that are each setup for appropriate display scales, font sizes, etc.
Publish the labeled points from Pro as vector tiles.

This isn't anywhere near as good as anno publishing to VT would be, but it works out ok for polygon labels. I suppose a person could figure out something similar for lines or dims using the middle vertex for a label point and getting the bearing as an added attribute for a rotation angle. I haven't needed to try that just yet. I'm hoping that this idea will generate some action from the ESRI Devs in the near future. Getting labels published in a visually appealing and performant way has been a big issue for a long time.

Re: Adding support of annotation in vector tile packages.

Jeff-Reinhart — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 21:20:22 GMT

Another kudos to this idea. We are working to publish a Vector Tile Layer for counties and public land survey data that will be used as an overlay in several apps. In the docs, it says "Vector tiles can be created only from point, line, polygon, or multipoint feature layers." I guess I always thought of annotation as just a point layer anyhow, so it seemed this should already be possible. Thanks to everyone who provided workarounds.

Re: Adding support of annotation in vector tile packages.

HiroshiMizuno_JP — Sat, 20 Apr 2024 10:53:17 GMT

I previously asked Esri support about this issue.
The answer was the same as what is written here.
I think this is a necessary feature to display a large number of labels neatly over a wide area.
I hope for early implementation.

Re: Adding support of annotation in vector tile packages.

Marc_Graham — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 02:00:19 GMT

It's unfortunate that annotation is not supported in Vector tiles. It seems to align well with the cartographic nature of vector tile layers as a basemap.

Re: Adding support of annotation in vector tile packages.

andrewdc_tt — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 01:37:35 GMT

This would be really useful to implement, especially being able to have annotations with labels at the set scale we want. This works suitably with a map service, but vector tiles would be a better/more efficient implementation for text as vectors.

Re: Adding support of annotation in vector tile packages.

WalterSimonazzi_VicPol — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 00:12:55 GMT

This idea was opened in 2017, it's 2025, any news?