Declutter

Declutter spaces out overlapping text items allowing you to display them clearly.

Use Declutter when all labels MUST be displayed (for eg prior to printing). If you do not always need all the labels displayed while using Cadcorp SIS Desktop 9.1 then using a label theme will be more beneficial.

The time it takes to declutter is determined by the settings and number of text items including the overlapping items.

We recommended you enable settings which do not restrict the location of text items. This will dramatically decrease the changes of having overlapping text items left over. The Declutter will try and keep the text item as close to its original location as possible.

The following Text decluttering Process options are also available from the Process command.

Declutter Text (align)	'Declutters' Text Items by changing their alignment
Declutter Text (offsett and rotate)	'Declutters' Text Items by moving and rotating them
Declutter Text (offset)	'Declutters' Text Items by moving them, and converting them to BoxLabel Items
Declutter Text (rotate)	'Declutters' BoxLabel Items by rotating them
Declutter Text (shrink)	'Declutters' Text Items by shrinking them, and converting them to BoxLabel Items

Using Declutter

Note: Ensure the overlay to be decluttered is editable.

1. Select all text items you want to declutter.

2. Next select Declutter.

Clearance and Alignment

Allow overlapping

Text boxes can overlap: The boxes surrounding the text items can overlap with other text boxes.
Text boxes can overlap alignment points: The boxes surrounding the text items can overlap with the alignment points.
Text boxes can overlap leader lines: The boxes surrounding the text items can overlap with the leader lines of other text items.
Leader lines can overlap: The leader lines coming off the box text items can overlap with other leader lines.
Add clearance: Sets the gap between previously overlapping items. If this value is too large the labels might not overlap the features. Too small and the labels might remain overlapped.

Alignment

Use the drop-down box to change the settings.

Don't change: The current alignment will not be altered.
Automatic: Cadcorp SIS Desktop 9.1 will automatically apply an alignment algorithm.
Horizontally only: The alignment will only be applied horizontally.
Vertically only: The alignment will only be applied vertically.
Horizontally, then vertically: Horizontal alignment is applied, then vertical alignment.
Vertically, then horizontally:Vertical alignment is applied, then horizontal alignment
Custom:Cadcorp SIS Desktop 9.1 allows you to manually specify where you want the alignment to be applied.

When Custom alignment is selected, the Priorities button is enabled.

Click the buttons to change the alignment. Each click toggles between values, 1, 2 and 3.

Any locations set to 0 are not used in the alignment process; locations set to 1 will have a higher priority than those locations set to 2. The OK button is disabled if all locations are set to 0, at least one location must have a priority of either 1 or 2.

Offsetting and Rotating

Options

Options allow you to alter priority between Offsetting and Rotating. Select the appropriate option according to which method should be used over the other. The option selected will determine whether the offsetting and rotating settings are enabled or disabled. The following settings provide boundaries for overlapping text to be moved between rather than precise instructions to be applied to all text items.

Offsetting

This process will move overlapping the item between the minimum and maximum value at an increment of the step value until a valid location is found.

Minimum (%): The minimum distance the text item is moved from its original location.

Maximum (%):The maximum distance the text item will be moved from its original location.

Step (%):If the text item is still overlapping the distance to be checked will be incremented by the step value.

Rotating

For the rotation to be applied the text items must be Box Label and have leader lines. It is the leader lines that are rotated not the text itself. The text will remain at the rotation it was before the declutter tool was applied.

Maximum rotation (degrees): Restricts the rotation applied to leader lines (depending on the selected direction).

Step: Automatic (Automatically increment the rotation angle of the box label item) or Evenly by (degree): Increment the rotation angle of the box label item in fixed steps.

Directions:

Both: Allows the box label item to be rotated in both clockwise and anti-clockwise directions.

Clockwise: Restricts the box label item rotation to be clockwise only.

Anti-clockwise: Restricts the box label item rotation to be anti-clockwise only.

By setting the Maximum rotation (degrees) to 180 and the Directions to Both the leader lines can be placed in any direction around the alignment point. However this will require more time to complete.

Click OK to apply Declutter.

Once complete assign style to the leader lines by changing the overlay Pen style. Applying symbols to the end of the line in Overlay Properties will apply symbols in the map window at the seed point.

A good way to generate text items is to apply a label theme to the data and then explode the theme to create a new internal overlay containing text items.

In this example a number of Caribbean island names as box label items are used (note how the text items are overlapping).

Select all the text items to be decluttered.

Click Declutter and complete the Declutter Configuration dialog as described above.

Cadcorp SIS Desktop 9.1 will apply your alignment settings moving any overlapping items according to those alignment settings.