How can I add proportional labels to my map? I have a dataset consisting of three variables: label, frequency, region. The label variable contains dozens of unique words. The frequency variable consists of integers indicating the frequency with which each label occurred. The region variable contains the name of a U.S. census region. On my map, I want each census region to display all of the labels that occur within that region sized proportionally by frequency (somewhat similar to a geographically bounded word cloud). I read Ken Field's article and blog posts describing his construction of the Geo-Geneaology of Irish Surnames map, but he does not provide adequate detail to replicate the process. Can someone describe the process more clearly or point to a resource to help me to accomplish this? Thanks in advance.
I believe the way you should be able to accomplish this is by using Labels Classes from within the Label Manager. This allows you to basically create a SQL query that will be applied to the layer and allow you to specify the size, color, and font of the labels for the data that meet that query for that particular label class.
So for example, since you want to have the label sizes displayed based off of the frequency, you may have a label class that is using a SQL query that is set to "Field_name" <= 10 and for any values that meet that query, will use a font size of 8, bold, and a color of red. Then for your next label class, the query might cover the values from 10-20, with a larger font and different color. Some information on Label Classes can be found here: Using the Label Manager.
Thank you Luke. That was my first approach, but I want to be able to control the placement of the labels so that they stay within the confines of the census regions - without having to resort to manually arranging each label as annotation.
