Erel,
Thanks for your answer, that will be helpful, I am sure.
In my case, though, it does not work. Because I am trying to accurately place one label to the right on another, like this:
fred
where "fre" is one label, and "d" is the second label. I do that by setting the location of the "fre" label, then measuring its width so that I can place the "d" label exactly after the first label. If I set the "fre" label width to -2, the "d" label is actually positioned 2 pixels to the left of "fre".