Data Frame - Clip to Shape - Exclude Layers - Labels draw outside of clip boundary

[Anonymous User]

Original User: BCP_GIS

Hi there,

I've just encountered this glitch with labeling and the use of the "Clip to Shape" option to "Exclude Layers".  When this option is used, the labels draw outside of the boundary area as defined by the "Clip to Shape". When the "Exclude Layers" option is not selected (i.e. include all of the layers in the clip) the labels do not appear. See the attached images to visualize.

Thankfully, I've been able to work-around this by using a definition query on the attributes of the underlying layers to exclude them entirely. But I could see this being an nuisance otherwise.

Is this a bug? Maybe not, but I thought I'd post it here if anyone else was encountering the same problems.

[MichaelRivera]

I'm having a problem with clip to shape - exclude layers, but it is with the layer I'm excluding.  I noticed that the aerial photography was outside of the county boundary so I wanted to clip it.  I excluded the Index Grid.  Before clipping, the Index Grid labes are in the center of each polygon.  After clipping, then Index Grids that intersected the county boundary are somehow affected and the labels have moved .

[Anonymous User]

Original User: BCP_GIS

An alternative to the data frame clip to shape would be to create a layer "mask" that would visually do the same thing, or to create a point layer from the grid centroids and us that to label the grid. It looks like the clip function is changing the "shape" of the grid cell and the placement of the label is being moved to the centroid of this new grid cell shape.

[MichaelRivera]

An alternative to the data frame clip to shape would be to create a layer "mask" that would visually do the same thing, or to create a point layer from the grid centroids and us that to label the grid. It looks like the clip function is changing the "shape" of the grid cell and the placement of the label is being moved to the centroid of this new grid cell shape.

I agree, it does seem that the clip function is changing the shape of the grid cells for placement purposes.  What do you mean by creating a layer "mask"?

[Anonymous User]

Original User: BCP_GIS

A mask layer can be created by:
- creating an empty polygon shapefile/feature class (usually sits in the project folder, or in an index folder)
- In an edit session, add a polygon that covers the extent of the area that you do not want to show
- Clip out the area that you do want to see (by using the same feature that was used to define the "clip to shape" for the dataframe).
- Set the properties of the layer so the symbol fill is white (or whatever your dataframe background colour is).

Hope the attachments help to visualize the area that I've "masked" (the city in the south).