topic Re: One label per polygon along the border - How to do it ? in Mapping Questions

One label per polygon along the border - How to do it ?

WegnezFrederic — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:51:26 GMT

Hello
I just want to label each polygon with the name along the inside border of the polygon. I need to have one label per polygon.
I'm using the boundary placement properties in Maplex (ArcGIS 10).
I'm using all the options available but I can't get rid of the duplicate labels in each polygon.
It seems that Maplex displays as much label as boundaries with other polygons.
"Remove duplicates" option available in the "Conflict Resolution" tab doesn't work even if I put a very high limit (10000000 map unit - meters)
If anyone has an idea to resolve this issue ?
Thanks
Frédéric Wegnez

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Re: One label per polygon along the border - How to do it ?

JonMorris — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:57:04 GMT

Hi Frédéric,

Boundary labeling is designed to place pairs of labels wherever two polygons are coincident, and spends most of its time trying to find these boundary pairs. Single-sided placement was an enhancement added to ensure a single label is still placed where there is no neighboring polygon. Remove duplicates will not work in the way you are trying to use it, as the label engine is looking for duplicates of each pair of polygon labels.

The placement you are after is really a line placement style, so you will have to use the Polygon to Line GP tool (Data Management toolbox) to convert your boundaries into line features and label them using line placement rules.

Alternatively, you could use offset curved polygon placement, although this can only place labels on the outside of each polygon.
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Re: One label per polygon along the border - How to do it ?

WegnezFrederic — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:12:37 GMT

Thank you Jon for all the information and for your suggestion to convert the boundaries into line features.
In my case it would be useful if the offset curved polygon placement could place the label on the inside of each polygon.
I hope this enhancement will be included in a future release.
So I will no longer need to convert the boundaries into line features and label them using line placement rules.
Frédéric

Re: One label per polygon along the border - How to do it ?

JonMorris — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:10:27 GMT

Hi Frederic,

It's on the list! Hopefully we'll manage to get this in a future release.

Re: One label per polygon along the border - How to do it ?

wayfaringrob — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 21:02:21 GMT

Per @JonMorris 's point, converting to a line does not work in all cases, and I really am curious if anyone has found a workaround in the last 10 years in Pro or ArcMap. I really just want my Census tracts to be labeled with their number along the border so it's out of the way for the other data I'm labeling, but still there; converting to lines wouldn't work as the label wouldn't necessarily sit on the correct side of the border.