{"id":184731,"date":"2013-06-21T21:02:02","date_gmt":"2013-06-21T21:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/?post_type=blog&p=184731"},"modified":"2018-12-18T11:32:45","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T19:32:45","slug":"tips-and-tricks-searching-and-finding-geoprocessing-tools","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-desktop\/analytics\/tips-and-tricks-searching-and-finding-geoprocessing-tools","title":{"rendered":"Tips and tricks: searching and finding geoprocessing tools"},"author":3991,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":""},"categories":[23341],"tags":[24321,23391,29771],"industry":[],"product":[36991],"class_list":["post-184731","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analytics","tag-geoprocessing","tag-spatial-analytics","tag-tools","product-arcgis-desktop"],"acf":{"short_description":"ArcGIS comes with hundreds of geoprocessing tools and finding the right tool for the job can be a daunting task sometimes.","flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

ArcGIS comes with hundreds of geoprocessing tools and finding the right tool for the job can be a daunting task sometimes, even if you know the name of the tool and have used it in the past. As a product engineer on the geoprocessing team, I\u2019m familiar with almost all the tools, yet not a day goes by when I don\u2019t find myself searching for a tool. So here are my tips and tricks for finding tools.<\/p>\n

The first place to start is the Search window<\/h2>\n

The Search window is your best friend for finding tools.\u00a0 You just need to make sure you click the \u201cTools\u201d filter, as illustrated below.\u00a0 You don\u2019t have to know the name of the tool\u2013you can enter any search phrase.\u00a0 See the help topic\u00a0A quick tour of finding tools<\/a>\u00a0for detailed information on the using the Search window to find tools.<\/p>\n

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

Something you should know about using the Search window is that we\u2019ve built special indexes for geoprocessing tools that help retrieve the right results. At every release, we review and update these indexes; anyone with a stake in the tool (such as developers, product engineers, and support engineers) can add new keywords and phrases to this index.\u00a0 Other search engines don\u2019t use these indexes\u2013they are only used within the Search window.\u00a0 For example, entering \u201cSwiss Cheese\u201d as a search phrase yields the\u00a0Erase<\/a>\u00a0tool. Why? Because we heard a user call it \u201cthe Swiss cheese tool\u201d once and we thought what the heck, throw it into the index.<\/p>\n

More importantly, the search index terms also get localized by our distributors, not by translators that might lack domain knowledge.<\/p>\n

Browsing for tools in the Catalog window<\/h3>\n

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

You can always browse for tools in the Catalog window by expanding toolboxes and toolsets. For those of us with a lot of experience, we know that the Add Field tool is located in the Data Management toolbox in the Fields toolset. The issue with browsing is that the name of the toolbox\/toolset is not always helpful. For example, where would you expect to find the\u00a0Create Random Points<\/a>\u00a0tool? If you\u2019re a statistician designing a sampling scheme, you might expect to find it in the Spatial Statistics toolbox, or maybe the Geostatistical Analyst toolbox. But if you\u2019re a cartographer wanting to randomly distribute overlapping points, you might look in the Cartography toolbox.\u00a0 This is just another reason to use the Search window.<\/p>\n

Creating your own toolboxes<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>If there is a set of tools you use often, or you just want to create groups of tools that fit with your domain knowledge, you can create your own custom toolbox and add system tools, as well as your own custom model or script tools, to it. You then have an easily found toolbox with your favorite tools.\u00a0 You can create a custom toolbox anywhere on your system, but a good place to create one is the My Toolboxes folder in the Catalog tree.<\/p>\n

For more information on creating custom toolboxes and adding system tools to it, see\u00a0A quick tour of managing tools and toolboxes<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Adding tools to a toolbox<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tool Index<\/h2>\n

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

Prior to version 10.0, the ArcToolbox window had an Index tab which listed each tool in alphabetical order. If you knew the name of the tool, you could quickly find it in the Index tab. This functionality has been replaced by the Search window\u2013all you need to do is to start typing the name of the tool and the drop-down list will automatically show the tool or tools that match the characters you enter.<\/p>\n

To open the tool\u2019s dialog, hover over the tool in the drop-down list and press the\u00a0Ctrl<\/strong>key and the\u00a0Enter<\/strong>\u00a0key at the same time.<\/p>\n

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

Chris Fox has written an add-in for ArcMap that creates a tool index dockable window.\u00a0 Many users have downloaded and installed this add-in and like it.<\/p>\n