Importing .XLSX file into ARCGIS 10.0

[MikeWhite1]

Does anyone know how I can Import an excel file containing XY data into ARCGIS 10.0. The excel sheet is excel 2010 and apparently it will only work for excel 2007? I keep getting an error when I do the import "Unable to connect to database". Is there a work around this problem?


Thanks

[Anonymous User]

Mike,
Please try this download:
Microsft Compatibility Driver for Office 2007, http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=23734. This driver should allow those .xlsx files to be read in ArcMap.
-Charles

[KimOllivier]

Even if the compatibility extension allows you to open the xlsx file in ArcMap it is not a very good option because all the text fields are 255 chars wide.

If you want to do a nice job, export the spreadsheet to a CSV format, define the field names, types and lengths in a schema.ini file and then load the CSV file.
http://msdn.microsoft.com text file driver
The ArcGIS loader will use the schema.ini file. Another way is to create a table in ArcMap and export it as a txt file. This will populate a schema.ini file which you can edit to point to the CSV file.