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Can't create shapefile from .csv (problem solved?) and X,Y Coord dropdown

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Hello,

I recently spent all afternoon of a work day trying to get ArcCatalog to create a shapefile from a .csv file. Two things were happening that were affecting the process.

1) The shapefile created would not contain any data (the Attribute Table was totally blank). I tried several things to correct this problem.

- Checked all of the field headings in the csv to ensure they contained no spaces or special characters
- Checked that the attributes in the X_Coord and Y_Coord Fields contained no spaces.
- Eliminated any commas from the original Excel file. (Many of the text strings within individual cells contained some commas for punctuation.) I changed all commas to semi-colons or dashes. I thought that commas in some of the notes might be offsetting the fields in the csv.
- After reviewing some of the ArcGIS forums, I then tried to save fields as Number, instead of General in the csv. Which was useless, because it always resets.
- After pulling my hair out for awhile, I looked at the fields themselves, and realized that when Catalog creates a new shapefile, each Record is assigned fields called 'FID' and 'Shape'. I already had a field in the csv called 'Shape'. I deleted the 'Shape' field from the csv, and WHA-LA, I could create my shapefile with all attributes intact.

I am curious as to why Catalog gets confused with these duplicate fields.

2) The dropdown box for Lat and Long would not contain the correct fields when I tried to create a shapefile from a csv on the server.

My second problem is that when I create a shapefile from a csv on my desktop, Catalog allows me to pull down the correct X and Y fields when I select Lat and Long. When I save the exact same csv to our server, Catalog does not pull down the correct fields to create Lat and Long.

Any feedback is grately appreciated.

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