Advance Labeling

[Bikram Sedhai]

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to understand the best workflow in QGIS for handling annotation like labeling (similar to ArcGIS annotation tools).

Specifically, I’d like to know:

• What is the best practice in QGIS for achieving annotation like behavior (manual label placement, persistent positions, and leader lines)?
• Is there a way to convert labels into a persistent annotation layer, or something equivalent in QGIS? To handle manual control over labels
• Are there any plugins, tools, or recommended workflows to deal with many complex  labels in QGIS (context is I work with multiple results reporting in maps with many tabulated and non tabulated data thats needs to be labeled to specific feature)

Any tutorial, documentation, and workflow recommendations would be appreciated.

Regards,

Bikram 

[Colin Mazengarb]

Hi Bikram, I use the  label toolbar for customising labels. The label position is stored in the attribute table of a layer in most instances. I hardly ever use the annotation toolbar functions to create separate labels as I prefer to use attribute tables to store content along with expressions. I remember an instance whereby someone used QGIS annotations on a very long fibre optic line requiring many pages in an atlas and the grief it caused managing updates, repositioning, etc. 

I would be interested in seeing a good case for using annotations in case I have something to learn. Let me know if this makes sense and for anyone else who has an opinion. 

Colin 

Sent from my iPhone

On 21 Mar 2026, at 1:42 pm, Bikram Sedhai <bikram...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Mark Motti]

Hi,

I use labels in a similar way to Colin, with the exception that I also use html annotations when I need show exceedance levels for sampled wells. But I agree, they are painful to use. 

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[Juan Fernando Berrío]

Hello Bikram, 

Thanks for asking a great question - I'm very interested in the answers too.  

Over time, working with different GIS professionals, I've seen how different people have different workflows to handle their labels - it's good to know what approaches work best given recent software updates etc. 

Cheers,

Juan

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[Bikram Sedhai]

Hi Mark, 

Thanks for that, I deal with the same sort of data with multiple reporting per site (often close to each other too). Would you able to share more info (I mean from basics)??. I haven't done that before in QGIS. I tried writing a labeling expression, but I wouldn't get a table like look (callout) but just a chunk of all parameters. Would appreciate any help.

Cheers,

Bikram

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[Emma Hain]

Hi Bikram

There are a lot of resources online,:

Mixed Format Labels to help with expressions

Labelling by Spatial Thoughts to help with the basics

Let us know how you go and perhaps we can put the solution up on QGIS Australia as a blog!

Kind regards

Em

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[John Bryant]

Great question :)

One QGIS tool I find pretty handy, which bears some similarity to ArcMap's "export to annotation" functionality, is "Extract Labels". 

You can pull out map labels as a point layer, and it automatically ports over your current labeling settings.

Cheers

John

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[Mark Motti]

Hi Bikram,

 

Sure can, so I receive input data as an excel file like this.

 

I then have a python script that reads the excel spreadsheet, converts it into a set of html files (one per sample location) preserving the formatting from the excel file and adds a html annotation to the corresponding sample in my qgis map. Then it is a manual process of resizing and moving the annotations around to produce a legible map.

Cheers,

Mark

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[Bikram Sedhai]

Thanks Mark, sounds cool! I will give it a go. 

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