Display entire map on one page with lots of labels and no overlap?

[neva]

Greetings,

The map I'm making in Tableau has the labels for markers overlapping unless I zoom in so much that only a small section of the map is visible. I'm presenting the map as one static picture of the entire state that is supposed to show all of the marker labels. Is there a way I can display a view of the map that will show the entire state I'm trying to display in one image with all of the marker labels visible? I've already set the font size to the smallest available and set text wrap on. It's bugging me because I know I could show a map with this many markers with labels on one page if I were drawing it on a piece of paper so I feel like it should be possible in Tableau :/ I asked on the Tableau forums and also asked the professor of a data visualization class I'm taking and was told that this isn't possible in Tableau and it's "hard to find software that uses dynamic labelling algorithms." Could you recommend a software program that can do this? I've attached an image of the map and I can upload my Tableau workbook if that would help mapproblem.JPG


TIA

[Hai-Etlik]

I don't know anything about Tableau.

Label placement algorithms with deconfliction certainly exist but but even the best of them aren't great. Certainly there are better ones than what Tableau seems to have based on your example. GeoServer, QGIS, uDig, OpenJUMP, and OpenLayers all have deconflicted label placement. QGIS is probably best suited to your needs.

As you want this to be a static image though, that opens the opportunity to do manual label placement. If you can export to an SVG, then you could load the image in Inkscape and manually move the labels. If Tableau can't produce SVG, you could use QGIS instead although its SVG output is a bit messy to work with.

If you go the manual route, you would do well to read Eduard Imhof's Positioning Names on Maps

[Tiana]

GGis is probably your best bet. This will allow you to set rules for the zoom size that text appears and how big it appears.

Personally, I would label this manually with a numbered legend for each library and then list the libraries in a separate box.