Saving Excel 2007 or 2010 as a DBF using the SaveDBF add-in

[JessicaSantiago]

My company is currently using ArcGIS Basic 10.0 and Office 2003. We are currently testing 10.1 and Office 2010 with the intention of upgrading, and are trying to deal with some of the changes that are in the newer version of office. We use Access and Excel everyday and frequently save Excel spreadsheets into dbf format to pull into ArcGIS. We specifically have a geocoding model that relies on a dbf to start, and our normal process has us formatting our addresses into excel first, then saving as a dbf. We have a lengthy work around, but recently heard about the SaveDBF Excel 2007-2010 add-in, which would allow us to save an excel spreadsheet as a dbf. This was developed by a third party.

I was wondering if any GIS users had heard about or used this add-in? We want to make sure that this is safe, and doesn't have any negative impact to any of our ArcGIS applications.


Thank you,
Jessica

[Zeke]

I don't know about the Excel addin, but Calc, the spreadsheet in Open Office (free) will save as .dbf.

[JimCousins]

10.2 (I am uncertain of 10.1) has a toolbox Conversion Tools>>Excel>>Excel to Table

[RobertBorchert]

Are you starting originally in Access?  If so is there a good reason why you don't just create a new address locator and simply add the access table directly to your ArcGIS Session.  Once you have it set up you can simply right click on the table in ArcGIS and directly geocode from there.

My company is currently using ArcGIS Basic 10.0 and Office 2003. We are currently testing 10.1 and Office 2010 with the intention of upgrading, and are trying to deal with some of the changes that are in the newer version of office. We use Access and Excel everyday and frequently save Excel spreadsheets into dbf format to pull into ArcGIS. We specifically have a geocoding model that relies on a dbf to start, and our normal process has us formatting our addresses into excel first, then saving as a dbf. We have a lengthy work around, but recently heard about the SaveDBF Excel 2007-2010 add-in, which would allow us to save an excel spreadsheet as a dbf. This was developed by a third party.

I was wondering if any GIS users had heard about or used this add-in? We want to make sure that this is safe, and doesn't have any negative impact to any of our ArcGIS applications.


Thank you,
Jessica

[JohnSobetzer]

We heard about the add in but haven't tried it.  We were able to install Excell 2010 while keeping the 2003 install as well; it was an option in the installation process.  Our IT guy handled it but here's a link to a Microsoft site.  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/keep-earlier-versions-of-office-programs-when-installin...  This method has worked very well with Excel 2010 and 2003.  I also kept an old Access and while having both works (with the 2010 version set to use the mdb format by default) sometimes I get the installer when switching between them; so I no longer use 2003. 

I also have Libre Office installed and can use its spreadsheet to save to dbf.