Need Assistance - First Time User

[AllisonMcKillop]

Hello all,

I apologize for the basic nature of this question.

I am unable to call tech support and my boss gave me this program today to use for the first time, with a deadline of tomorrow for a zoning issue project.

I have several Excel spreadsheets with names and addresses in them. One is for retail stores, one for residential, etc.

I need to figure out how to create a map of my city, and plot each point (300+) on the map, with a radius around each one. This needs to be fairly accurate to within a few feet (not sure if this is something my boss just wants or if it's even possible)

How do I do that with this program. I have searched online, but am at a loss.

Any information would be much appreciated.

[AllisonMcKillop]

When I export to .pdf, my radius's show up, but not my actual points.

I exported as an arcmap package, and the same problem exists. I do have a red next to my layer for points on the left sidebar as well.

However, the map I am working from in arcmap displays them fine.

hmm.

[SepheFox]

Interesting. Can you post a screenshot of your finished map in ArcGIS? Did you get any warning messages when you created the .mpk? If you click geoprocessing-->results, you can expand the results of the map package tool to show any messages, and then post a screenshot of that here too.

[AllisonMcKillop]

Attaching two screen shots - one is of the messages I got when I exported to a package (didn't notice the first time) and the other is a shot of how it looks when my package is displayed - missing the actual points.

[SepheFox]

Before you make you map package, right click the x/y events in the table of contents, select export, and then navigate to wherever the rest of your data is kept, and save it. Call it address_points or something. Then add that in to your map, and make it look like the x/y layer of points you have there. Then get rid of the x/y layer, and try saving the map package again.

[AllisonMcKillop]

Added descriptions and exported the point data again, this time the packaging was successful!

Going to try and upload to arcgis online to share.

Yes!

[SepheFox]

[StevenGraf1]

To get rid of the High Warnings, click on Item Description and put something in each of the text boxes.

[ChrisSmith7]

Honestly, I am not familiar with desktop stuff as much these days, but sharing as a map package (new in 10) should keep all of your data together. The red exclamation marks would generally show if you just shared the MXD and weren't careful in setting up relative paths with linkages to the data on disc.

Are you creating an export similar to how they are doing it here?

What I Love about ArcGIS 10 - Map Packages | GeoMattix

[AllisonMcKillop]

This is a terribly dumb question, but need to make certain before I hand this in -

I'm trying to create buffers around points that encircle everything within 1000' of the point.

If I plot a point on the map, and then create a buffer @ 1000', am I doing this correctly?

I created this buffer for each point on my map, but when I used the "measure tool", the distance from my point to the outer edge of the buffer was ~1200 feet?

Am I missing something?

[SepheFox]

It certainly should be, but if you are using geographic coordinate system, and not projected, this could cause some problems. You can try using the Project tool to reproject your data to something else, and then recalculating your buffers.