9

I want to rotate labels interactively/visually, using edit tools. I don't want to use the Data defined Rotation method, found under Layer Properties > Placement.

Is there a way to interactively rotate labels in QGIS using any of the edit tools?

While Data defined Rotation works well, it is tedious to set the text rotations for a feature, having to manually enter and "guesstimate" the text angle value into the attribute fields. Especially for point and polygon features.

Improve this question
2
  • 1
    You can only rotate point around other other point. Are you going to change point location? If not, what on Earth are you talking about?
    – FelixIP
    Commented Mar 20, 2017 at 8:52
  • Make sure you have Label toolbar visible. As it might not be clear, you need first create columns X, Y and rotation. And link these columns in style settings to make the label edit tools available. I also wonder if this question is not duplicate because I remember many years ago facing this same issue. It is not very intuitive for QGIS beginners that label settings are saved together with other data in table and you must link the columns to make manual label editing tools available.
    – Miro
    Commented Mar 21, 2017 at 3:02

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4

Yes, you can rotate labels interactively.

If you set up a data defined label position and rotation field (should be a double on your dataset's attribute table) then you can edit the position and rotation using the label tools.

Here's where you set the field:

set up rotation

Next you edit the layer, and use the 'rotate label' tool:

rotate label

And now you can rotate labels interactively.

Rotated labels

Improve this answer
1
  • 4
    This is exactly what I had done, but the label manipulation tools remained inactive. The problem was the rotation angle field type was not "double". I edited the table and generated a "real" number field type and reassigned that as the Data defined Rotation field. This made the label edit tools activate. Thank you, Alex.
    – Ed Camden
    Commented Mar 22, 2017 at 0:12

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.