18 replies to this topic

[Unit Seven]

Ok—so if I export a map from Arc to AI using the standard labeling engine by curved text comes through to Illy as text on a path but with poor placement, while this was a major advance for working between GIS and Illustrator if I then use Maplex to get better placement my curved text is seperate letters (as we are all used to when taking curved text between different software).

I have tried converting my Maplex labels to Annotation and this still comes through 'broken,' does this mean if I convert standard labels to Anno these will come through broken? Or are the Annotation layers held differently? I am about to test the different options for Anno layers and will post my results

• Maplex Labels
• Maplex Anno w/ feture linking
• Maplex Anno w/out feture linking
• Standard Labels
• Standard Anno w/ feture linking
• Standard Anno w/out feture linking

Am looking at exporting two versions of the map to Illy each time—maplex to get most labels and standard which I would copy across from a non prining layer to replace the Maplex label and then edit the path. Obviously this would depend on project and amount of intervention needed but think it would be a bit quicker on a lot of labels than the old cut the broken text out, draw path, paste cut text onto newly drawn path.

Does anyone else have any ideas on how how these features are held and what can be achieved in keeping text on a path intact with better placement.

Any ESRI staff on here able to offer any insight on if Maplex Labels or Anno are going to export in a similar way to the standard labels any time in the near future? Has this been looked into? I would see this as a major selling point to all the cartographers finishing maps in Illy and would fit in well with the Illustrator export workflow that so many are using.

Look forward to any insight.

[Unit Seven]

Ok—results are out:

• Maplex Labels - Broken
• Maplex Anno w/ feture linking - Broken
• Maplex Anno w/out feture linking - Broken
• Standard Labels - Text on Curve correct
• Standard Anno w/ feture linking - Text on Curve correct
• Standard Anno w/out feture linking - Text on Curve correct

From waht I can see from attributes on feature linked anno (Standard & Maplex) are held the same as I would expect as it is now just a feture class with no labeling engine required to update yet something makes them be treated differently—should this be the case?

[rudy]

Does the "broken text" result in misplaced or incorrectly appearing text in Illustrator? If the placement is "perfect" in ArcGIS does it remain "perfect" in Illustrator?

[Unit Seven]

Hi Rudy,

No there is no change in how it looks from Arc to Illy—the placement is as it is in Arc but each letter is a seperate object in Illustrator.

It is just that there is no way to edit the curve the text is placed on, or trcak the text looser, or change the font etc etc.

[Unit Seven]

Have attached an ai file with a layer showing resulting Maplex labels and resulting standard labels. While standard placement is much worse the usability in the Illy environment is much better.

I would of thought the two would of been treated the same coming out of Arc esp once they are converted to anno but something is forcing them to be treated diffrently.

Attached Files

•  NZMasterMap_layoput__CS1_.zip   278.51K   90 downloads

[Matthew Hampton]

Hi Sam,

I think you bring-up a very important point - one that I have struggled with for a a few years.

For some reason, the "glue" that holds letterforms together into a "word" on the baseline gets broken and you are left with letter fragments. I mentioned this to C. Frye a couple of years ago and he concurred that there was a difference b/w the two (Std. and Maplex). I am not too sure if they have peeked under the hood to see what/why/how it's happening - but it sure would be nice to have Maplex-placed label/annotation strings hold together on export.

The really nice thing on the Ai side is if you copy all the fragmented letterforms and paste them back, they turn back into a single-baseline word.

It would be really nice for ESRI to add some glue to the baseline of Maplex-placed labels - but perhaps it could also have something to do with the Ai export?

[Unit Seven]

Yes! Just figured out what was wrong!

The wordspacing attribute, ususal story I imagine that these type of attributes don't transfer between apps easily so it drops everything to letters. But set this too 100 as it was in my standard labeling and the Maplex anno exports with 'glue'.

I imagine there are other cases which would break this but that was the problem in my test case—others I think could be a problem would be CharacterSpacing and not so much but maybe CharacterWidth but hopefully this will give you something to go on.

Cheers.

[wick]

Thanks for the tip. In my tests the letters of each word are "glued" together, however the words are all separate text blocks.
Are you experiencing the same thing? Do you have a solution to get exports where the entire street name is 1 word?

Thanks!

[Unit Seven]

No I'm also getting the words seperated but I do kind of expect that due to how different apps handle text apcing etc. Maybe look at setting up maplex so it does not add space between the words. When you convert the labels to anno is it one piece of anno or two in ArcMap?

[Neil Allen]

I've had luck inserting an "_" where all spaces occur. Then Maplex will see it as one continuous word and place it as such. Then in your graphics program, you can find/replace the "_" with a space.

[pd3244]

Very interesting thread. I have a couple of (AI) newbie follow up questions:

I have many years of experience with the ESRI label engine and Maplex extension and only a few hours of Illustrator + Map Publisher experience.

• Is there a reason to create labels in ArcGIS and move them to AI instead of creating the labels in AI + Map Publisher?
• Is there a good source that compares native label functions between the two platforms from a practitioner's perspective (i.e. - no marketing spin)?

I used Maplex with very complex rules with much success - however by ESRI's own admission, Maplex breaks down on page sizes greater an E.

....was hoping that AI + Map Publisher would support native labeling that was equal or superior to Maplex - esp. on very large page sizes....

...any opinions, resources, etc. are greatly appreciated!!


Thanks,

Paul

[Unit Seven]

Personally I have only tested a demo version of Map publisher and found the labelling to be lacking compared to Maplex so found working in Maplex and exporting to Illy without MAPublisher at the last moment poss to be the best way to suit my work flow but as with everything different people will prefer different work flows.

This was all before I started using really using Maplex and since I have started using it have been very impressed with the way it can work with Illy if you remember the tricks we have mentioned here. Would be nice if we could get around the breaking words without using an underscore and also ArcMap handles special characters a bit inconsistently sometimes—I find you can use 'ALT-code' to enter special characters into the attribute field but not in the anno edit window.

[pd3244]

As a follow up to Paul's outstanding question ref: MapPlex vs MapPublisher + AI:

Can a MapPublisher pro offer a general comment on MapPublisher's automated label functions - specifically:

• AUTOMATED placement options and performance relative to feature location (for complex streets as an example)
• AUTOMATED placement options and performance relative to represented location
• limit duplicate label placement by distance, etc?
• stacked labels with font glyphs / symbols

Samples of AUTOMATED label placement would be great

Same vein as Paul's question - just less work to reply ( I hope) ! -- I'll sift through the marketing spin if I have too

If you couldn't tell; I was also addicted to ArcInfo and MapPlex ---

Thanks --

Paul#2

[MapMedia]

Am revisiting this thread as it is the best place for my question:

I need to export street annotation from Arcmap to Illustrator, but the annotation is too complex as Illy throws a Virtual memory error with either PDF, AI, or EPS. (I have 4 gigs ram so I don't think ram would be a prob).

The map is 3' x 4' at 1:120,000. I have tried exporting just one set of annotation (no features), which is stored in geodatabase, but even this is too big. I need to export at 1200 dpi else there are type crashes etc.

Has anyone found a workaround to this? I guess I could slice up the street network and recreate the annotation this way, exporting one slice at a time.

[Unit Seven]

I wouldn't think it would be that much of a problem - resolution shouldn't affect it as should all be vector. I'd go with 7200 to avoid rounding errors. Does the exported PDF look ok in Acrobat?

You don't have a tranceparency applied to the text do you making it rasterize.