# Text labels in ParaView?
**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/text-labels-in-paraview/4180
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Tags:** vtk
**Created:** [April 24, 2020, 10:20pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/text-labels-in-paraview/4180 "2020-04-24T22:20:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@vadimcn](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/vadimcn)
#### Post date: [April 24, 2020, 10:20pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/text-labels-in-paraview/4180/1 "2020-04-24T22:20:38Z")
I’d like to be able to store and display free-form text labels for points/cells. Is this possible in ParaView?
I’ve seen some examples that utilize vtkStringArray’s, but can’t find any documentation about how to store them in VTK files or how to render in ParaView.
Any pointers to examples would be appreciated!
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### Author:  [@cory.quammen](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/cory.quammen)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2020, 12:23am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/text-labels-in-paraview/4180/2 "2020-04-25T00:23:17Z")
Welcome to ParaView, @vadimcn!
In ParaView 5.8.0, you can create **Text** sources that are anchored to particular xyz locations. See [https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview/-/blob/master/Documentation/release/ParaView-5.8.0.md#new-billboard-and-flagpole-mode-for-text-source](https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview/-/blob/master/Documentation/release/ParaView-5.8.0.md#new-billboard-and-flagpole-mode-for-text-source) for details.
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### Author:  [@vadimcn](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/vadimcn)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2020, 7:55pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/text-labels-in-paraview/4180/3 "2020-04-29T19:55:01Z")
Thanks for the suggestion, however it seems that Text source gives me only a single annotation per plot. I would like to display annotations for each point or cell (ideally, sparsified when the view is zoomed out).
Also, as I mentioned, it is not clear to me how to store text strings in .vtk dataset files (the strings are free-form and cannot be derived from numeric arrays).
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### Author:  [@cory.quammen](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/cory.quammen)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2020, 8:17pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/text-labels-in-paraview/4180/4 "2020-04-29T20:17:08Z")
> [@vadimcn](#):
>
> I would like to display annotations for each point or cell (ideally, sparsified when the view is zoomed out).
You can mostly do this with the _Selection Display Inspector_ (available under the view menu), but it requires that you select points or cells first. Then you can label the selected points/cells with data array values. The labels won’t be sparsified as you zoom, out though, so it’s not exactly what you are requesting.
> [@vadimcn](#):
>
> Also, as I mentioned, it is not clear to me how to store text strings in .vtk dataset files (the strings are free-form and cannot be derived from numeric arrays).
It may be the case that .vtk (the so-called legacy format) supports string arrays. The XML file formats, do, though.
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### Author:  [@harshabose](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/harshabose)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2023, 8:23pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/text-labels-in-paraview/4180/5 "2023-06-27T20:23:44Z")
I know this is an old post but an easier way to visualise the points/cells labels is using “Find Data” option in “View” Toolbar. You can extract the points/cells and then export as desired.