Working with Excel Sheets in ArcGIS Pro
Included in this tutorial:
Working with Excel data in ArcGIS
Adding Excel tables to a map project
Exporting Excel tables to a different format
Software version in examples: ArcGIS Pro 2.8.2
Tutorial Data: The tutorial includes demonstration with sample data available here.
Credits: L. Meisterlin with Erik Strand, Moses Levich, and Thiago Lee (2021)
This tutorial reviews the basics of using Excel spreadsheets as standalone tables in ArcGIS Pro.
Working With Excel Data
To access Excel files in ArcGIS Pro, ensure that the Microsoft Access Database Engine Driver is installed.
More information can be found from Esri here: Work with Microsoft Excel files in ArcGIS Pro.
Adding Excel Tables
ArcGIS Pro accepts Excel files, treating each sheet of an Excel workbook as a separate table. Each sheet must be added separately. They are identified with the $ sign at the end of their names.
TIP: It is usually best to clean up unnecessary columns, remove or substitute undesired characters, and perform basic calculations in Excel (demonstrated in detail in the Preparing ACS Data from the US Census Bureau for a Table Join tutorial).
When a table is added, the Contents Pane will display a separate section called “Standalone Tables,” since the table does not contain spatial information. In this example, Tracts_table from the DataPackageTables.xls file has been added to the project.
adding an Excel sheet to a project
Exporting to a different format
To export an Excel table to a geodatabase table (or other table format), right-click on the table’s name in the Contents Pane, then click through Data > Export Table.
Select an appropriate geodatabase or folder and assign a name. A new field OBJECTID is automatically added to the geodatabase table.
exporting an Excel table as a geodatabase table