topic Re: Excel file to shapefile in Geoprocessing Questions

Excel file to shapefile

ABDALLAMOHAMED — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 18:34:44 GMT

Hi,

I have my data in excel file and want to convert it into shapefile. Any help please. Appreciated!

Re: Excel file to shapefile

ChrisDonohue__GISP — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 18:42:56 GMT

There are several ways to do this, but it depends on what you are working with and what type of shapefile you want. Some questions to help clarify what you are after:

1. Will the resulting shapefile be of points, lines, or polygons?

2. What version of ArcMap do you have and what license level?

Chris Donohue, GISP

Re: Excel file to shapefile

ABDALLAMOHAMED — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 18:59:06 GMT

Hi Chris.. thanks for your response. I want the resultant shapefile to be a polygon. I have GIs version 10.2.2, and it is student version I got through my university.

Hope that helps

Best!

ABDALLA

Re: Excel file to shapefile

ChrisDonohue__GISP — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 19:53:17 GMT

Is your Excel Data of points that make up the polygons? Also, is there an ID field that identifies which points are part of which polygons? If so, the workflow would be check the Excel data to make sure it is "GIS compatible", import the Excel data to GIS, save the resulting import as a point shapefile (or feature class in a geodatabase), then build the polygons from points.

Before importing to ArcGIS, be sure the Excel spreadsheet has been "cleaned up" to GIS standards. This will help avoid issues after import.

Formatting a table in Microsoft Excel for use in ArcGIS—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop

Adding the Excel table to ArcGIS

Adding a Microsoft Excel table to ArcMap—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop

Once the Excel data is in ArcGIS, be sure to save it out as its own shapefile, as the initial display is an "Event layer" and is just temporary.

To convert the points to polygons, there are several methods. Note that some depend on what license level one has and one method involves a third-party add on (ET Geowizards). For the latter, I believe one can download a demo copy for free.

Also, some of the methods rely in part on using a File or Personal Geodatabase during the processing. If so, from the beginning import save to a geodatabase, do the processing, then export the final product once the polygons are completed to a shapefile.

How To: Convert a point feature class to a polygon feature class

Chris Donohue, GISP

Re: Excel file to shapefile

AbdullahAnter — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 19:53:41 GMT

Could you attach your excel file?

Re: Excel file to shapefile

RebeccaStrauch__GISP — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 20:01:54 GMT

You may want to also look at this thread

https://community.esri.com/thread/186447-creating-a-polygon-footprint-with-4-coordinates-from-excel-file

which has a script that may work......similar question.

Re: Excel file to shapefile

ABDALLAMOHAMED — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 20:09:18 GMT

But my excel data are not points. They are just data in excel format.

Re: Excel file to shapefile

RebeccaStrauch__GISP — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 20:17:16 GMT

As Abdullah Anter mentioned, can you attach the excel or at least show a screenshot of the data in the file?

When you say they are not points, are you saying you do not have any coordinates? If you have coordinate (pairs) in some format, typically it can be formatted to read into ArcGIS to create points and/or polygons. See cdspatial response.

If you do not have coordinates, what is the data? Just a description??

Re: Excel file to shapefile

ABDALLAMOHAMED — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 20:31:30 GMT

the data has no coordinates, It is a demographic data I downloaded from Longitudinal Tract database (LTDB). For example, Columns have total population, white, black and latino populations etc.

Re: Excel file to shapefile

RebeccaStrauch__GISP — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 20:44:49 GMT

I am not familiar with that dataset, but f the file itself has no coordinate or geographic info, does it have some common field with a shapefile that already exists? if so, you can use one of the join tools to attach it to that shape.

By the way, with "Longitudinal" in the name, it sounds like it should at least have a "longitude" coordinate....are you sure there isn't a "latitude" too? If so, you could create this as a point shape file, then use the fishnet command to create a "grid" of square polygons over the top of the points and joint the data that way.

With the name "Tract", there might already be a polygon shapefile of this.

BTW since you have a student version of the software, if this is for a class, this is maybe what the assignment is supposed to have you figure out. if that is the case, start looking thru the help from some of the links we sent. There is a lot of info in the help.

Re: Excel file to shapefile

ABDALLAMOHAMED — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 21:10:31 GMT

This is not student assignment. It is for my doctoral dissertation. The data has common field (ID). But i don't have any other shapefile to join. Can I add xy coordinates, convert it to a point, then to shapefile?

Re: Excel file to shapefile

RebeccaStrauch__GISP — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 21:21:24 GMT

yes. You would still probably create the shape first, then add the attribute info with a joinitem. Look at Chris's comments above.

Also, depending on what coordinates you enter,

if not lat/long, you will need to know the coordinate system.
if lat/long, remember it is actually x = longitude, y = latitude. Also South and West are negative numbers

Re: Excel file to shapefile

ABDALLAMOHAMED — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 21:23:12 GMT

I will send you a sample of my file soon!

Re: Excel file to shapefile

ABDALLAMOHAMED — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 21:25:31 GMT

Okay, let me try that and see the result..

Thanks a lot!

Re: Excel file to shapefile

ABDALLAMOHAMED — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 23:44:10 GMT

I got it.. Thanks all for your inputs

Re: Excel file to shapefile

EllenSleeter — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 14:22:24 GMT

Ouch. Spoken like a GIS person and not a social scientist. "Longitudinal" in this context very likely means that the study was conducted over a "long" period of of time, thereby increasing the validity of the dataset...

Re: Excel file to shapefile

BobbyMaiden — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 14:41:05 GMT

Here is what I do with census type data.

1. Download the data as an excel spreadsheet or csv.

2. Download the shapefile relating to the data granularity (State, County, Zip, or block)

3. Open the spreadsheet data check

A. that there are no blank lines,

B. that there are no extraneous data lines such as summations or superfluous titles

C. column headers in the first row and that they are less than 12 characters with no spaces or special symbols

other than underscore or hyphens

4. Save spreadsheet and import into MS Access. This step allows you to set the datatypes correctly. Excel has it's

own mind when declaring datatypes.

5. In Access, set the datatypes appropriately in table design mode.

6. Save the MS Access database in 2002-2003 format. This will allow you to import table to ArcGIS Desktop in the

next step.

7. Open ArcGIS Desktop and add both the census polygon shapefile and the Access data table. You can add a

base layer first to set the map's coordinate system.

8. Join the data table to the shapefile using a common key such as county, zip or tract.

9. Data>Export the shapefile (now containing joined data) to a new shapefile of your choosing. The shapefile's

coordinate system will be the same as your working map's. At this point you are finished. You do not need to

save the map. The shapefile is saved and available for use as soon as it is exported.

Re: Excel file to shapefile

RebeccaStrauch__GISP — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 17:09:29 GMT

lol.....yep I'm and institutionalized GIS person. My brain always looks for the geospatial possibility ...and of course not always correct.

Re: Excel file to shapefile

ABDALLAMOHAMED — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 22:05:52 GMT

Yes, you are wonderful. Looking forward to learning a lot from your institutionalized GIS brain.