Map Packages

[warrenroberts]

OK .. so I tell my students not to add spaces nor exceed length of folder more than 13 characters given we'll work with spatial analyst at some point.. so my map package generated 'extracts' data into a folder that (for me) was originally 9 characters (GIS221003) into a folder that is .. well, too bloody many characters (GIS221003_45C09209-B8D2-439D-AA58-5BFC414B5162) to count.  How can we avoid this rather than giving the students another chapter on relative path names and renaming folders? 

I'd like the mappackage to simply extract the data to a folder with the same characters / name as before.  Any suggestions?  Thanks!!

[MarkBockenhauer]

Warren,

You may want to give the 'Consolidate Map' tool in Toolbox a try.

It will put the map and data in the folder name of your choice.

Mark

[DanPatterson_Retired]

I looked at the map packages and found that there was too much overhead and ...yes the crummy path names.  Also, consolidate, I found saved everything within a subfolder that also contained my data.  At that point...I abandoned them with the given caveat...I only work with locally stored data organized within one primary folder (which may contain sub-folders relative to this one).

My solution...zip the folder that contains the mxd and the subfolders that contain all the data.  Great to distribute, everyone has the capabilities to unzip AND the data (eg. csv, shapefiles, grids etc etc) are all accessible to the recipient who may not use ArcGIS but uses other programs or other open source GIS packages.

[warrenroberts]

Thank you Dan Patterson‌ and Mark Bockenhauer's Blog‌ for both great answers .. the attraction I have is the groups under arcgis.com for distributing lessons data to 40+ students in one classroom w/o having to resolve issues with extracting file with different browsers, etc .. instead my students are to set the sharing tab under arcmap options to point to the folder.  I have determined the problem is version related .. I use 10.2.2 and when opening the map package it creates the long folder name ,.. whereas when I performed it in the classroom (10.1) the folder generated is the same as the original I created.  Thanks for your input!!