Excel file to shapefile

[ABDALLAMOHAMED]

Hi,

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

[ChrisDonohue__GISP]

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

[ABDALLAMOHAMED]

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

[ChrisDonohue__GISP]

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

[RebeccaStrauch__GISP]

You may want to also look at this thread

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

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

[ABDALLAMOHAMED]

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

[RebeccaStrauch__GISP]

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??

[ABDALLAMOHAMED]

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.

[RebeccaStrauch__GISP]

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.

[ABDALLAMOHAMED]

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?