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If I create point data and label them with callouts, I have the following problems:

  1. The callouts will cross each other
  2. The Text is over the points
  3. It seems quite messy

enter image description here

I want to automate this because I have over 200 points and don't want to manually change the position of each label. I have seen, that there is a geometry generator & Data Override option, but haven't found any useful information on the web.

Specified [What I want]:

  1. Each point should be labelled.
  2. The callouts should not cross each other
  3. The labels should not overlap with the points.

My sample data: Sample Data.

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    Can I suggest you also share your current style settings (at least the key ones) - file and/or screenshot - so that people can easily replicate your starting point.
    – Tom Brennan
    Commented Nov 26, 2023 at 5:43
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    @TomBrennan I have attached the style settings in the geopackage itself. I think if you open the layer it should automatically set the layer settings. Or is this not the case?
    – eagleadmiral
    Commented Nov 26, 2023 at 16:19
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    (1) should be controllable by changing the Rendering->Overlapping labels setting. You can probably fix (3) to some extent by using Simple (Point) Markers rather than a (Polygon) Geometry Generator. (2) is likely to be the tricky one - the callouts are driven by the label positioning, so you have little control over callouts crossing labels or other callouts. You can write a data defined expression for the preferred label direction - but it's not going to be easy, and may need to be quite specific to your dataset. Hard to tell whether that's possible from the small example set.
    – Tom Brennan
    Commented Nov 27, 2023 at 5:16
  • @TomBrennan Thank you. I wish QGIS could implement, that the Callout-Lines would not cross. Isn't there a way to do this by an existing algorithm?
    – eagleadmiral
    Commented Dec 7, 2023 at 17:13

1 Answer 1

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Regarding point 3: If your intention was to use a geometry generator for the symbol to make it behave like a polygon in terms of label settings, that won't work. You need to use the geometry expression under the geometry generator for labels instead (Labels > Placement tab).

Firstly, the expression you used for your geometry generator symbol was exterior_ring(make_circle($geometry, 2)) which is actually a linestring output, not a polygon.

So let's change this to make_circle($geometry, 2) and use it in the labels geometry generator, selecting Polygon/MultiPolygon output geometry.

You will now get label placement options for a polygon. Select Outside Polygons and your labels will be more likely to not overlap the point symbol.

enter image description here

This might make the labelling behave a little more like what you like, although as the comments to your post suggest, it's hard to tell with a small sample set, and avoiding callout line crossover is not a straightforward thing with current versions as far as I know.

Maybe play around with the label geometry generator expression, for the example below shown at 1:400 I used make_circle($geometry,4)

enter image description here

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  • Thank you. Number 3 is clear for me. Thank you. Do you have any ideas how to archive number 2? @she_weeds
    – eagleadmiral
    Commented Dec 7, 2023 at 17:12
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    Do you mean save the label positions? You could use field calculator to save the auxiliary label xy fields to actual xy fields and then when you reapply the style in a different project use those actual xy fields to control label position.
    – she_weeds
    Commented Dec 7, 2023 at 20:18
  • Yes, exactly. see: gis.stackexchange.com/questions/471590/…
    – eagleadmiral
    Commented Dec 8, 2023 at 10:09

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