It would be very helpful if enabling a leader could be a fitting strategy, which would only create the leader with offset when it was needed. Currently when we enable leaders it impacts all the labels for the layer. The only way to pick and choose which label has a leader is to convert to annotation, which we never have time to mess with here. Our office is so busy, and our turnaround times are such that using annotation is impractical.
If it were possible to just choose leaders as a fitting strategy like we do with things like text size and specify an offset range, I think it would make producing maps with congested areas much clearer to read and faster to make.
For example, if we make a map of facilities, points of interest, or projects in our downtown core, the labeling gets difficult to understand, even with key numbering. We can choose to reduce text size and have the software pick the best location around the point, which will make all the labels fit, but when several points are clustered together it is hard to tell which label goes with which point when the position of the label isn't in a consistent placement. If we enable leaders on the whole layer, then sometimes they interfere with other layers or get dropped for interfering. Trying to find a happy medium on the leader length is very difficult. If labels with leaders were just a bit more aware of where they were in relation to other things and could adjust the leader length as needed that would be a good first step, but having the leader enable/disable as part of a fitting strategy would make the workflow faster, easier, and look more polished like annotation.
