Map labels on top of your data
A basemap draws its place names under your data, so a filled shape, a heatmap or an imagery layer covers them. The Map Labels reference layer draws place names again above your data, so readers can still see where they are.
Add map labels
- In the Format pane, open the Layer Manager card and switch on Open Layer Manager.
- Select Add a layer, then Reference layer, then Map labels.
- Set the zoom range if you want to, select Add to map, then Apply changes.
You can also add the layer in the Format pane: open Reference Layers and switch on Map Labels. The switch is in the group's heading.
Pair Map Labels with a basemap that has no labels of its own, so that each name is drawn once. With an Icon Map style, switch off Show Labels in the Style group of the Background Layer card. See Icon Map basemap styles.
Choose the look
The labels are always taken from the Icon Map basemap styles. Label Style picks the style whose labels you want. Pick the one that matches your basemap.
Your own colors
Set Label Style to Custom to choose the colors yourself. You get a color for each kind of place name, from neighborhoods up to countries, and control over the halo that separates the text from the map.
Language
Language sets the language of the place names. It is available for label styles that support more than one language, and for Custom. For other styles it is grayed out. It starts on Report language: the place names follow the language of the report when it is German, Spanish, French or Portuguese, and are in English otherwise. Choose a language, English included, to use it whatever the report's language. Language takes conditional formatting (fx): return a two-letter language code such as en or fr from a measure. A blank value follows the report's language.
Settings
Format pane > Reference Layers > Map Labels
The switch in the group's heading turns map labels on and off.
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Label Style | One of the Icon Map basemap styles that have labels, or Custom | The first style in the list |
| Language | The language of the place names. Report language follows the report. Takes conditional formatting (fx) | Report language |
| Neighborhood Color | Color of neighborhood names. Shown for Custom | #000000 |
| Locality Color | Color of town and city names. Shown for Custom | #000000 |
| Region Color | Color of region names. Shown for Custom | #000000 |
| Country Color | Color of country names. Shown for Custom | #000000 |
| Halo Color | Color of the halo around the text. Shown for Custom | #FFFFFF |
| Halo Width | Width of the halo, 0 to 10. Shown for Custom | 2 |
| Halo Blur Width | How far the halo fades out, 0 to 10. Shown for Custom | 1 |
| Min Zoom | The labels are hidden when the map is zoomed out past this level | 0 |
| Max Zoom | The labels are hidden when the map is zoomed in past this level | 24 |
| Z Index | Drawing order, 0 to 1000. Higher is nearer the viewer | 440 |
In the Layer Manager, select Map labels to change Visible at zoom. The style, language and colors are in the Format pane.
Languages
Arabic (ar), Bulgarian (bg), Chinese (Simplified) (zh-Hans), Chinese (Traditional) (zh-Hant), Croatian (hr), Czech (cs), Danish (da), Dutch (nl), English (en), Estonian (et), Finnish (fi), French (fr), German (de), Greek (el), Hebrew (he), Hindi (hi), Hungarian (hu), Indonesian (id), Irish (ga), Italian (it), Japanese (ja), Korean (ko), Latvian (lv), Lithuanian (lt), Maltese (mt), Marathi (mr), Nepali (ne), Norwegian (no), Persian (fa), Polish (pl), Portuguese (pt), Romanian (ro), Russian (ru), Slovak (sk), Slovenian (sl), Spanish (es), Swedish (sv), Turkish (tr), Ukrainian (uk), Urdu (ur), Vietnamese (vi).
Tips and limits
The default Z Index of 440 puts map labels above circles, lines, shapes and file layers, and below data labels. Lower it to tuck the labels under a layer.
Use Min Zoom and Max Zoom to show the extra labels only at the zoom levels where your data hides the basemap's own.
A report built in Icon Map Pro with another label source, such as Azure Maps, draws the Icon Map labels in Icon Map Slicer, with the settings above.
To label the features of your own files, see Labels on reference layers. To label the rows of your data, see Data labels.