topic How to prevent from truncating field name -exporting feature class to shp in Data Management Questions https://community.esri.com/t5/data-management-questions/how-to-prevent-from-truncating-field-name/m-p/761469#M42789 <HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Sometimes, when you export feature class to a shp file, some of the field names are being truncated. How can I keep full field names after exporting the data in shp file?</P></BODY></HTML> Wed, 15 Apr 2015 14:10:18 GMT NaimeCelik 2015-04-15T14:10:18Z How to prevent from truncating field name -exporting feature class to shp https://community.esri.com/t5/data-management-questions/how-to-prevent-from-truncating-field-name/m-p/761469#M42789 <HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Sometimes, when you export feature class to a shp file, some of the field names are being truncated. How can I keep full field names after exporting the data in shp file?</P></BODY></HTML> Wed, 15 Apr 2015 14:10:18 GMT https://community.esri.com/t5/data-management-questions/how-to-prevent-from-truncating-field-name/m-p/761469#M42789 NaimeCelik 2015-04-15T14:10:18Z Re: How to prevent from truncating field name -exporting feature class to shp https://community.esri.com/t5/data-management-questions/how-to-prevent-from-truncating-field-name/m-p/761470#M42790 <HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>You can't, it is a limitation of the dbase format which is part of the shapefile.&nbsp; You have to go in and set an alias for use within a project.</P></BODY></HTML> Wed, 15 Apr 2015 14:21:13 GMT https://community.esri.com/t5/data-management-questions/how-to-prevent-from-truncating-field-name/m-p/761470#M42790 DanPatterson_Retired 2015-04-15T14:21:13Z Re: How to prevent from truncating field name -exporting feature class to shp https://community.esri.com/t5/data-management-questions/how-to-prevent-from-truncating-field-name/m-p/761471#M42791 <HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Shapefiles field names have a maximum character length of 10 characters.&nbsp; This is a requirement of the format and cannot be overridden.&nbsp; Therefore there is no way to convert a field with a name longer than 10 characters into a shapefile without changing the name to fit the format requirement.</P><P></P><P>If the person I am providing the data to users ArcMap, I zip a file or personal geodatabase.&nbsp; If I must export to a shapefile I usually copy and paste one record from the original feature class into a spreadsheet and send the spreadsheet along with the shapefile.&nbsp; The spreadsheet would show what the full field names were before conversion to the shapefile.</P><P></P><P>You could set up aliases in a layer and export a layer file and send that layer file to the other user to display a readable field name, but the underlying field name will be truncated.</P></BODY></HTML> Wed, 15 Apr 2015 14:26:09 GMT https://community.esri.com/t5/data-management-questions/how-to-prevent-from-truncating-field-name/m-p/761471#M42791 RichardFairhurst 2015-04-15T14:26:09Z Re: How to prevent from truncating field name -exporting feature class to shp https://community.esri.com/t5/data-management-questions/how-to-prevent-from-truncating-field-name/m-p/761472#M42792 <HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Field names are limited to 10 bytes. When using english this is 10 characters. When using multibyte languages this can be significantly shorter. Using Kanji (Japanese) the charcters take up 2-4 characters. This potentially limits you to 2 character field names. </P></BODY></HTML> Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:20:25 GMT https://community.esri.com/t5/data-management-questions/how-to-prevent-from-truncating-field-name/m-p/761472#M42792 LanceShipman 2015-04-15T16:20:25Z