import dbf file from arcgis

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I am having some problems loading a dbf file into excel 2007. If properly imported it would have 4642 rows and extend to column ASK. If I just open it, it truncates the dbf at column IU, which is the same as excel 2003. If I get external data/from text, after about 10 minutes it hasn’t loaded.

Any suggestions on loading a dbf file of this size?
Thanks.

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Excel treats .dbf files as DBase files. A DBase file can have a maximum of 255 fields (columns), so it’s not surprising that the import stops at column IU (the 255th column).

If Arcgis uses a customized .dbf format with more than 255 columns, Excel won’t recognize the extra columns.

The .dbf file format is binary, you can’t treat it as a text file.

Can you export from Arcgis to a comma-delimited or fixed-width text file?

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Excel treats .dbf files as DBase files. A DBase file can have a maximum of 255 fields (columns), so it’s not surprising that the import stops at column IU (the 255th column).

If Arcgis uses a customized .dbf format with more than 255 columns, Excel won’t recognize the extra columns.

The .dbf file format is binary, you can’t treat it as a text file.

Can you export from Arcgis to a comma-delimited or fixed-width text file?

another “ah ha!” moment. thanks for the explanation.

Actually, it’s coming from a computer model as a shape file and we’re manipulating the data in excel. Someone else is running the model and says it’s the only way to get the data out of the model. Googling around, I found a program called dbfviewer which will read it and export it to a tab delimited file, which will then import into excel. Unfortunately, it rounds to 6 decimals, so it’s introducing a small round-off error. Will continue to search for an answer.

Thanks for the help!

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I don’t know if shp2text – export and convert ESRI shapefile to text/xml/spreadsheet for Excel/SQL/Google Map would be useful.

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