We got one of those perennial 'tough nut' questions on Ask a Cartographer today. The question has to do with using annotation versus on the fly labeling with Maplex and what are often called overflow labels, which I have also heard called ''key lists''. While we are able to recommend tips and tools for specific circumstances or implementations, ...

Notice in the first graphic below that the labels for ''CAJON ST'' and ''CLIFTON CT'' are placed over of major streets in a way that makes them difficult to read. This graphic is derived from my recent blog entry on the Maplex Street Placement option, and I was using the Street Placement option, but that left me with this problem. Well, this ...

You may already have the Maplex for ArcGIS Extension. It's free with an ArcInfo license of ArcGIS. Many ArcInfo users don't know this and that fact has unfortunately kept many people from taking advantage of the superior text placement capabilities in the Maplex Label Engine. One of those capabilities is the Street Placement option, it is ...

We've had a number of folks writing in on Ask a Cartographer wondering how to displace or offset coincident points so all the points could be seen. Data with coincident points is most commonly produced as a result of geocoding addresses. There are at least two ways to handle displaying this data.  One would be to create a graduated ...