Format Display - Overlays - Labels

To access this dialog:

With the Design window active, select the View ribbon and Format | Overlays followed by the labels tab.
Type 'fdd' in the Design window followed by the labels tab.

Labels are used to annotate labels in the Plots window. Labels are assigned to key points on an objects geometry (line segment ends, wireframe triangle junctions etc.) and can be configured according to the settings on this screen. Note that the settings applied here will only apply to the selected object.

For more information about selecting objects in the Format Display dialog, click here.

If a label has not been previously set for the selected object, you will only be able to define a new label "container" and select the Reset... button, which will allow you to configure formatting for the selected label.

The recommended workflow for defining plot labels is:

Select the overlay to be labelled using the Overlays list on the left.
Select the Labels tab in the Format Display dialog
Select the label to be defined using the Labels drop-down list, or add a New label (each object can have more than one label set). You can also Delete existing labels.
Select Reset and use the Reset Labels dialog to choose an attribute within the data object containing values to be displayed as annotation.
Select the Style tab and click the label attribute to display the Format for... dialog.
Define the label visual format. More...
Back in the Format Display dialog, set up the Font and Position of the label.

When a column has been selected, the following options are available, spread over two sub-tabs (Contents and Style):

Field Details:

Labels: each overlay can be supported by one or more label type. Each label type is represented as an item in this drop-down list. Select the label type to modify, or choose New to add a new entry to the list (and then proceed to set up the label attribute using Reset). You can also Delete a label type.

Style Tab. Each label item, on selecting this tab, becomes a button. Press a button to display the Label Item Format dialog to change text format settings for individual label items. This tab will only appear if at least one attribute has been defined for labelling, using the Reset button.

Contents Tab: This tab, when selected, displays a list, or group of lists containing the field(s) to be represented by the resulting label(s). The number of items shown, and the table in which they are shown, can be configured using the Reset... button (see below). This tab will only appear if at least one attribute has been defined for labelling, using the Reset button.

Label Grid: the label grid is used to define the label matrix. There is no limit on the number of items that can be stored in a label grid, and each item can be configure individually with regards to appearance (including legend usage), position and precision, e.g.:

When label fields have been specified, you can use the Style tab to set individual label formatting options.

Row Height/Column Width: set the width of the rows and columns for your label(s) in mm.

Include field names...: enable this option to include the field name within the label item, or leave it clear to display the derived value only.

Clip lines and arrows...: enable this option to prevent line and arrow data from obscuring the current label. Note that this option, when selected, will only 'clean up' data that is lower down the drawing order list than the currently selected object.

Reset...: reset label settings and display list of object labels available using the Reset Labels dialog. From here, you can choose the number and type of fields to be shown on a label and to select Rows and Columns for the label layout.

Font...: displays the Font dialog, allowing you to specify default font sizes and types,

Position...: Shows the Annotation Position dialog. This dialog is used to configure the position of label items within the label table.

Apply to all overlays displaying...: if the currently selected object is represented by more than one overlay, you can elect to apply the current settings to all overlays for the specified object by enabling this check box. If cleared, the settings will apply to the currently selected overlay only.

Apply, OK, Cancel: as with most dialogs, you can elect to either make changes and apply them, keeping the dialog open or you can apply and close the dialog at the same time. Of course, you can also cancel the operation without applying changes. When applying changes, note that there will be a redraw of data, which may take several seconds, depending on the hardware involved and the size of the data sets in memory.

You do not have to re-create display formats each time a new data file is loaded, or a new overlay is created; instead, you can utilizeData Display Templatesfacility to devise the optimum display format for a particular data type, and apply it to all objects as required. For more information on this, seeData Display Templates.

	Related Topics
	Reset Labels dialog Formatting Object Overlays Annotation Position dialog Format Overlays