{"id":171181,"date":"2010-08-10T18:44:24","date_gmt":"2010-08-11T01:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/?post_type=blog&p=171181"},"modified":"2018-12-18T11:38:30","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T19:38:30","slug":"working-with-microsoft-excel-in-arcgis-desktop","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-desktop\/data-management\/working-with-microsoft-excel-in-arcgis-desktop","title":{"rendered":"Working with Microsoft Excel in ArcGIS Desktop"},"author":3571,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":""},"categories":[23851],"tags":[25901,24341,26911,28811],"industry":[],"product":[36991],"class_list":["post-171181","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-data-management","tag-excel","tag-python","tag-spreadsheets","tag-table","product-arcgis-desktop"],"acf":{"short_description":"There are several questions that people often ask me about working with Excel data in ArcGIS: Can I export a table directly to Excel?","flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

There are several questions that people often ask me about working with Excel data in ArcGIS: Can I export a table directly to Excel? Why are the attributes in my Excel table all null after creating a join? Why can\u2019t I see my .xlsx file in the Catalog window? For those of you who have used Microsoft Excel data in ArcGIS, you know that there are some special conditions to do so. Those conditions include understanding the limitations and guidelines for working with Excel data. By the way, the answer to the first question is yes, of course you can export to Excel, and I will tell you how.<\/p>\n

Working with Excel Spreadsheets<\/b><\/p>\n

Excel acts like containers for worksheets and named ranges, which can be added to ArcMap like other tabular datasets. For those of you who don\u2019t already know, a named range is when you select a subset of cells in an Excel worksheet and label it. In ArcMap, worksheets will have a $ at the end of their name, while named ranges will not. For example, the QuadrantOne range of cells can be added to ArcMap as a table:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Field naming guidelines for Excel worksheets<\/b><\/p>\n

You can see from the named range graphic that I\u2019ve made my column headings (field names) one-word names, like PercentContaminated and RemediationDate. There is a very good reason for this. Using a space in your field names in Excel can cause you problems when working with the data in ArcMap. What usually happens when a space is left in a field name is that the values for these fields can show up as Null in ArcMap (this will happen when you\u2019re trying to join to an Excel table). There are several other field naming guidelines that everyone needs to know:<\/p>\n

-Field names need to start with a letter.<\/p>\n

-Field names should only include alphanumeric characters or underscores.<\/p>\n

\u2013 None of these: `~@#$%^&*()-+=|\\,<>?\/{}.!\u2019[]:;<\/p>\n

\u2013 No spaces (That includes before the field name, in the middle, or after it.<\/p>\n

-Field names will be cut off after 64 characters<\/p>\n

-Do not used\u00a0reserved words<\/a>\u00a0as field names.<\/p>\n

If you follow these guidelines, you will have a lot more success when using Excel data in ArcMap.<\/p>\n

Supporting XLS and XLSX files<\/b><\/p>\n

Have you ever shared your Excel data with colleagues and had them come back to you saying they can\u2019t see it in ArcCatalog or the Catalog window? ArcGIS can read both XLS and XLSX files, but you may need to install an additional driver on your machine, depending on what version of Microsoft Excel you are using.<\/p>\n