You may have content stored in databases, spreadsheets, or other sources that you'd like to display on a map; for example you might have a customer list or a set of environmental sensor devices at specific locations. You can import this content into an ArcGIS Explorer map provided it has address or coordinate information associated with it and is in a file format ArcGIS Explorer can read, such as a .csv or a .txt file that has delimited values or uniformly fixed width fields up to 99 characters in length. To do this you use the File Import Wizard. The Wizard reads your file, gathers information from you about it and then creates place results for each item in the file. For files containing addresses you can match up to 200 addresses per file; for coordinate-based locations, your file can contain up to 64,000 coordinate or coordinate pair values.
The following sections are organized as you will encounter them in the course of working with the File Import Wizard; as such you can read them in sequence. Use these links to navigate quickly to a particular section:
To select a file to import choose Tools menu > File Import... In the File Open dialog box browse for text files with a .csv, .txt file extension, or any file extension so long as the file contains text only. Once you've chosen a file, the File Import Wizard dialog box will display. In addition to starting the import process from the Tools menu, you can drag a .csv or .txt file from Windows Explorer and drop it onto a running instance of ArcGIS Explorer. Once you drop the file, you'll see the first panel of the Wizard. Return to top
The first panel you see displays the File Delimiters grouping. Here's where you specify how the file is structured. If you select Delimiters you'll be able to specify how the information on each line of the file is separated; for example, in many cases each unit of information is separated from the next by the default separator, a comma. Choose from Comma, Space, Tab, Semicolon, or a character you enter in the panel's text box. If you choose Fixed Width as the delimiting structure of the file, the dialog panel changes to allow you to specify a constant width for all of the file's fields. You may specify a field width up to 99 characters. Return to top
A checkmark in the 'First line contains field names' checkbox tells the File Import Wizard to treat the first line of your file as a row of field names; if you clear the checkbox, the File Import Wizard will supply generic names for each delimited unit of information. The fields will be named Field1, Field2, Field3, and so on. Return to top
Check the 'Treat consecutive delimiters as one' checkbox if your data contains a delimiter of more than one character between data fields. Return to top
In the Text qualifier dropdown list, you can select the character that encloses values in your text file. When the Wizard encounters the text qualifier character, all of the text that follows that character and precedes the next occurrence of that character is imported as one value, even if the text contains a delimiter character. For example, if the delimiter is a comma (,) and the text qualifier is a quotation mark ("), "Redlands, California" would be imported into one cell as Redlands, California. If no qualifier or if the apostrophe (') qualifier were specified, "Redlands, California" would be imported into two adjacent fields as "Redlands and California". Return to top
At the bottom of the dialog box on all panels of the File Import Wizard, you'll see the Data Preview section. Here's where you can see how the File Import Wizard understands what's in your file. The table will change dynamically based on the settings you make in the rest of the dialog box. Note that Data Preview only displays the first five lines of your file.
Once you've finished specifying how the file's organized, click Next to move to the next panel where you'll tell the File Import Wizard what kind of data is in your file and what fields to look in for location and descriptive information. Return to top
To instruct the Wizard as to which field of your file contains z-values or elevation data, select the field in the Elevation Source. Once the application processes the imported file, the Placement property of each result is Absolute and the Height property is the value of the Elevation field. Return to top
To instruct the Wizard as to what kind of data your file contains, choose one of the three Location Source options.
If the file contains addresses choose the Addresses option and then press the Next button at the bottom of the Wizard to move to the next panel in which you'll specify which fields contain the components of the address.
If the file contains Latitude/Longitude coordinate pairs choose that option and then specify the name of the field that contains the X-coordinate (Longitude) and which field contains the Y-coordinate (Latitude). The coordinates may be in either Decimal Degrees (DD), Degrees Minutes Seconds (DMS), or Degrees Decimal Minutes (DDM) form. Whether you use DD, DMS, or DDM, coordinates may contain a minus sign before the numeric value to signify the Western or Southern quadrants or you may use the E, W, N, S characters to signify the hemisphere. Additionally,
values in DMS coordinates can be separated with the ° ' " special characters (such as when you paste coordinates that you have copied from other dialog boxes or applications that use those characters) or spaces. The following are validly formatted latitude/longitude coordinates:
| Latitude | Longitude |
| 45 | -45 |
| 45°30'30"N | 45°30'30"W |
| 45 30 30 N | 45 30 30 W |
| 45.50833 | -45.50833 |
If your file contains USNG or MGRS coordinates choose that option and then specify the name of the field that contains the coordinate. The following list contains validly formatted U.S. Military Grid Reference System (MGRS) and US National Grid (USNG) position locations. Position locations may include spaces.
| 18SUH | (100,000-meter square) | 0 digit coordinate |
| 18SUH64 | (10,000-meter square) | 2 digit coordinate |
| 18SUH6743 | (1,000-meter square) | 4 digit coordinate |
| 18SUH678432 | (100-meter square) | 6 digit coordinate |
| 18SUH67894321 | (10-meter square) | 8 digit coordinate |
| 18SUH6789043210 | (1-meter square) | 10 digit coordinate |
Once the Wizard processes the file you've supplied, it will create place results that you can inspect, navigate to, and use with other tasks. The Results Sources fields provide the Wizard with the information to distinguish each location.
The contents of the Title field can be used to identify the location in the list of results in the Results window; this may be useful since the default text used in the Result window is the coordinate pair or coordinate.
The contents of the Description field will be placed in the popup window associated with the location. This can be anything from a single word to full HTML markup, including links to web sites, etc. Learn more about HTML markup in text files and notes.
In addition to the field names of your file you'll see an entry that is <All Fields>:
If you select this item, all field values for the result will be placed in the popup window associated with the location. The application will place each field value, preceded by the field name, on a separate line. You can use the Result Properties dialog box to edit the text.
In some cases, both of the results sources may be the same field or you may only want to specify one of the fields. You may find that the most common scenario is to identify the location and use another field to supplement the default information. Note that this functionality is available for Latitude/Longitude and USNG or MGRS coordinates only. Once you've specified the coordinate location source fields and any result source fields, click Next to select a symbol that will mark any found locations assuming you want to choose the symbol yourself; otherwise, click Finish. Return to top
Your address data in text files can be in one of two formats; it can either be in one field in its entirety or it can be in multiple fields. An example of the first case would be:
StreetAddress, Description
380 New York Street Redlands CA 92373, ESRI Corporate Headquarters
In the above case, you'd check the One Field as Address option and select the field named StreetAddress as the Address field.
An example of a multiple field address would be:
Street, City, State, Zip, Description
380 New York Street, Redlands, CA, 92373, ESRI Corporate Headquarters
If your file contains multiple fields that constitute the address you must specify which field contains each part of the address. So, in the above example, you'd specify Street as the Street field, City as the City field, and so on.
If your file does not have, for example a City field and a State field, but you know that all addresses are in the same city and state, you can check the appropriate checkboxes and enter a constant value, for example:
Once you've specified the address fields and any constants, click Next to select a symbol that will mark any found locations assuming you want to choose the symbol yourself; otherwise, click Finish. Return to top
In the Symbol Selection panel of the File Import Wizard choose a symbol. The symbol you select will be used for each place found on the map. If you want to load additional styles to choose from you can browse for ServerStyle files by clicking the Styles button. Return to top
Once you are satisfied that the File Import Wizard has all the information you want to supply, click Finish. The application will take your information and the file and attempt to match as many locations as it can. If you have a file with more than 20 addresses, ArcGIS Explorer will match the first 20 addresses it can and then notify you that you should break up the file into several other files, each containing a maximum of 20 addresses. Since there's no limitation on the number of coordinates, you won't see this message and the application will find all the locations it can. There's no limit to the number of lines containing coordinate information, but if your file contains more than 1000 records, only the first 1000 results will be visible; any additional results will still be located, but won't be marked as visible initially. In both cases, the results, and any error messages issued, will appear in the Results window and locations will be marked with the symbol you specified. You can use the context menu for any of the results as you do with any other result. Return to top
As part of your work, you may find that you use the same filename each time to create place results or add to the existing file. The Wizard looks to see if you've used the same filename before and if so, it will offer to use the parameters you specified initially so that you don't have to re-enter everything again. To do this, the Wizard creates a file with the same as your original file, but with the extension .etx in the same folder as the file you chose to import originally. You may want to verify that you have Write permission on that folder prior to running the Wizard. Return to top
If for any reason, at any time in the process, you want to stop your work before the application starts to find locations, just click Cancel. Return to top
If your text file contains field names with specific text, the Wizard will recognize them and associate them automatically with the corresponding field in the appropriate panels. You may want to take advantage of this to save time when you load your files. You can always change the field name if your files contain multiple fields. The text strings recognized by the Wizard and the fields they are assigned to are:
| These text strings | Are associated with this field |
| lon long longitude x x-coord x-coordinate | Longitude field |
| lat latitude y y-coord y-coordinate | Latitude field |
| ele elev elevation elevrawft floor height z z-coord z-coordinate z-value | Elevation field |
| title | Title field |
| description | Description field |