exporting mulitple fields within a shapefile to seperate shapefiles

[janehansen]

I have 12 shapefiles all containing 5 fields for each individual location (point data).  I need to export each of these fields to seperate shapefiles.  Is there a tool I can use that will do this?

Thanks,

Jane

[DarrenWiens2]

If you search for "split layer by attribute", you'll find a few options, like here and here. I thought there was a similar tool out-of-the-box in ArcGIS, but I can't seem to find it.

[janehansen]

I looked at that tool but I thought it said polygons only

[DanPatterson_Retired]

Split Layer by Attributes the first one, does any geometry, inputs and outputs to shapefiles, haven't checked the second (for obvious reasons)

[janehansen]

Is there another tool that can be used with this tool, say in model builder so it can select one shapefile, select the attributes, then go to the next shapefile and run those attributes etc....

What I have is 12 shapefiles each with 5 columns each column has all the same type in it.  That entire column needs to be exported to a new shapefile, then the next column needs to be exported to a new shapefile, then the next...etc.  Then I want to move on to the next shapefile.  It contains the same 5 columns with the same 5 types but for a different year.  All 5 of these columns need to exported to new shapefiles...one for each column and type...

Can you help me understand how to create a tool, or use modelbuilder to do this?

[DanPatterson_Retired]

You could, but it would take more time to automate this than to do it once manually, so it is not something I would do unless I had to do regularly

[DarrenWiens2]

It sounds like you are describing Batch Processing, which provides you with a grid of the tool parameters with each row being a tool run (right-click the tool in the toolbox and choose "Batch"). You can drag and drop layers and fill down the columns to speed things up. When you click OK, it will run the tool once for each row.