Changing label characters when using spmap

[Andrea Berni]

Hello all.

I have some special need: I'd like to change labels in maps produced with spmap to bold to make them even more readable. I usually would increase character size, but I'd prefer to have them bold in this special case. I know I am asking something difficult: through the forums the problem has arisen before, and no workable solution was proposed.

Thanks for reading.

[David Radwin]

Here is one way to make labels in boldface. It adds the SMCL (Stata Markup and Control Language) directives (tags) for boldface to the string variable make. You could use a similar approach with value labels.

. sysuse auto

. replace make = "{bf:" + make + "}" in 1/5

. twoway (scatter price mpg, mlabel(make)) in 1/10

[daniel klein]

Here is one way to make labels in boldface. It adds the SMCL (Stata Markup and Control Language) directives (tags) for boldface to the string variable make. You could use a similar approach with value labels.

With elabel (SSC), this is easy to do

sysuse auto
elabel define (foreign) (= #) (= "{bf:" + @ + "}") , modify

To see the changes, you will (for now) have to use Stata's label list command, which requires the value label name

. label list origin
origin:
           0 {bf:Domestic}
           1 {bf:Foreign}

You cannot use elabel list to view the changes* because the latter interprets SMCL when displaying value labels. I will change that in a future update.

Best
Daniel

* Edit: Actually, whether you see any differences will depend on the chosen (Results Color) preferences; what I meant to say is: elabel list does not display value label verbatim.

[Andrea Berni]

Thanks both, I am going to test these workarounds as soon as possible!