Coordinate system doesn't change. Wrong units are being displayed.

Question

Hello! Thanks in advance if you're reading this.

I've been trying to change the coordinate system from WGS84 to CR05. Despite my efforts changing the coordinate system in Map properties and changing it in Project options, the same coordinates show up at the bottom of the screen. What it's interesting is that no matter what coordinate system I chose, the default units never change. No matter what I chose, the software always displays WGS84 coordinates and I don't understand why. I've been trying to add points from a table which have CR05 coordinates and I always get and error. If I insert the same point using WGS84, I never get the error.

Help please! I've been dealing with this for hours and other's people coordinates change in YouTube videos.

danretired · Answer

Make a featureclass and define it with what you have.

You can then project it to a GCS WGS84 or even just add its coordinate values to your table.

Don't make things  more difficult, you have the data in a coordinate system, just define it as it is.

To tell something what it is Define Projection (Data Management)—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation

To make something, something else Project (Data Management)—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation

To calculate values in a table in a different coordinate system.

Calculate Geometry Attributes (Data Management)—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation

read it carefully to get the options you want.

IsaacDelgado · Answer

Not exactly. I have a stand alone table and I want to use the "Display X Y Data" tool so I can create a feature class based on that table which has CR05 coordinates. The tool creates points for each line of the table and it automatically assigns a position based on the coordinates. I thought that if I could "change" the WGS84 default coordinates in the map, then the tool would work only using the CR05 system and I would not get the error message that I'm receiving. But I think now that if I want to create that feature class that way is better if I transform the coordinates to WGS84 first (not sure how to transform so many lines) and then use the tool; which works with WGS84.

And I thought that if could see the CR05 coordinates on the cursor it would be easier for me, I could use the Locate tool any time I wanted to check where a borehole was based on the coordinates on the geologic reports. That's why I was so interested in "forcing" the coordinates to be CR05. I'll be working solely on that system.

Btw: Is there a better way to insert points from a different coordinate system? Let's say, Cad maybe?

danretired · Answer

your "table" I hope represents a featureclass in a geodatabase and you defined its coordinate system.  If the coordinate system of the layer isn't defined and the map doesn't have its coordinate system defined as such, then you won't see meters (or whatever you need).  If you defined it as a geographic coordinate system with a WGS84 datum, then you defined it wrong and need to fix it and define is appropriately.  Then you can see the units you want