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Welcome to ArcGIS Desktop Help
Copyright information
Acknowledgements
GIS Dictionary
What's new in ArcGIS
Getting started
Fundamentals of GIS

Three views of GIS

How maps convey geographic information

Georeferencing and coordinate systems

Elements of geographic information

How GIS represents and organizes geographic information

How ArcGIS users work with geographic information

Users work with many data types and data formats in ArcGIS

Comparing Geoprocessing and Spatial Analysis
Introducing ArcGIS Desktop
Tutorials
Toolbars

Core ArcMap toolbars

ArcCatalog toolbars

Extension toolbars

ArcScene toolbars

ArcGlobe toolbars

ArcReader toolbars
Getting more help

Using this Help system

Getting help within the applications

ArcGIS Desktop Resource Center

ArcGIS Desktop Documentation Library

Accessing ESRI Software Training

Using the GIS Dictionary

Contacting Technical Support

Support for users located outside the United States

Contacting ESRI
Map projections and coordinate systems
Getting started with map projections
Geographic coordinate systems

About geographic coordinate systems

Spheroids and spheres

Datums

North American datums

What happens to features at +/-180 (dateline)?

GCS_Assumed_Geographic_1
Projected coordinate systems
Geographic transformations
Supported map projections

List of supported map projections

Aitoff

Alaska Grid

Alaska Series E

Albers Equal Area Conic

Azimuthal Equidistant

Behrmann Equal Area Cylindrical

Bipolar Oblique Conformal Conic

Bonne

Cassini-Soldner

Chamberlin Trimetric

Craster Parabolic

Cube

Cylindrical Equal Area

Double Stereographic

Eckert I

Eckert II

Eckert III

Eckert IV

Eckert V

Eckert VI

Equidistant Conic

Equidistant Cylindrical

Equirectangular

Fuller

Gall's Stereographic

Gauss-Krüger

Geocentric Coordinate System

Geographic Coordinate System

Gnomonic

Goodes Homolosine

Great Britain National Grid

Hammer-Aitoff

Hotine Oblique Mercator

Krovak

Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area

Lambert Conformal Conic

Local Cartesian Projection

Loximuthal

McBryde-Thomas Flat-Polar Quartic

Mercator

Miller Cylindrical

Mollweide

New Zealand National Grid

Orthographic

Perspective

Plate Carrée

Polar Stereographic

Polyconic

Quartic Authalic

Rectified Skewed Orthomorphic

Robinson

Simple Conic

Sinusoidal

Space Oblique Mercator

State Plane Coordinate System

Stereographic

Times projection

Transverse Mercator

Two-Point Equidistant

Universal Polar Stereographic

Universal Transverse Mercator

Van der Grinten I

Vertical Near-Side Perspective

Winkel I

Winkel II

Winkel Tripel
Vertical coordinate systems
Mapping and visualization
An overview of mapping and visualization
Using ArcMap

Layers, data frames, and the table of contents

Starting ArcMap

Creating a new map

Opening a map

Using the table of contents

About coordinate systems and map projections

Specifying a coordinate system

Referencing data in the map

Working with data frames

Pausing the map's drawing

Saving a map and exiting ArcMap

Saving to previous versions of ArcGIS

Keyboard shortcuts in ArcMap
Working with layers

Adding layers to a map

Adding a layer package to your map

Adding x,y coordinate data as a layer

Changing a layer's drawing order

Changing a layer's text description

Setting layer properties

Managing group layers

Saving a layer to disk

Copying layers

Displaying layers at certain scales

Displaying a subset of features in a layer

Repairing broken data links

Viewing a layer's metadata in ArcMap

Setting HTML pop-up properties for feature layers
Navigating and interacting with maps
Adding graphics and text to maps
Working with graphics
Working with text
Symbolizing data
Animation
Getting started with animation
Animation concepts
Building animations
Playing animations
Editing animations
Saving, exporting, and loading animations
Common animation work flows
Using cartographic representations
Getting started with representations
Representation concepts
Working with representations
Editing feature representations
Page layout and map composition
Working with graphs and reports
Working with web maps in ArcGIS

An overview of GIS Web map layers

Working with ArcGIS Server in ArcGIS Desktop
Using services from ArcGIS Server
Using services from ArcIMS
Using OGC Services
Using KML
Using ArcGIS Online
Using image service layers
Working with service layers in the table of contents
Printing and exporting maps containing service layers
Publishing optimized map services in ArcGIS

Publishing optimized map services

Drawing differences between ArcMap and optimized map services
Map Service Publication Toolbar error messages
Map Service Publication Toolbar warning messages
Map Service Publishing Toolbar information messages
Editing and data compilation
Tables and attribute information
Geoprocessing
Geoprocessing tool reference
Geodatabases and ArcSDE
An overview of the geodatabase

An overview of the geodatabase

Essential readings about the geodatabase

Table basics

Feature class basics

Raster basics

Types of geodatabases

Client and geodatabase compatibility

Common geodatabase tasks
Architecture of a geodatabase
Designing a geodatabase
Building a geodatabase
Data management workflows, transactions, and versioning
Getting started with editing and maintaining data
Working with non-versioned data
Working with versioned data
Managing Distributed Data
Archiving data
Geodatabase data storage and schema

A short history lesson on simple features

How geodatabases are stored in a DBMS
Feature geometry and raster data storage
Inside a geodatabase in DB2
Inside a geodatabase in Informix
Inside a geodatabase in Oracle
Inside a geodatabase in PostgreSQL
Inside a geodatabase in SQL Server
Administering ArcSDE geodatabases
Administering File and Personal geodatabases

An overview of administering file and personal geodatabases

File geodatabases: compressing vs. compacting

Compacting file and personal geodatabases

About compressing file geodatabase data

Upgrading file and personal geodatabases

File geodatabases and Windows Explorer

File geodatabase size and name limits

File geodatabases and locking
Working with geodatabases using SQL

An overview of working with ST_Geometry storage using SQL

Spatial relationships

Spatial operations

Geometry properties

SQL implementation differences for the ST_Geometry type
Using spatial types with SQL
SQL functions reference
Data management with ArcCatalog

An overview of ArcCatalog

About workspaces
Getting started with ArcCatalog
Building the Catalog

About folders and file types

Managing folder connections

Creating and accessing geodatabases

Creating spatial database connections

Adding OLE DB connections

About database server connections

About GIS servers and services

Connecting to GIS servers

Working with database connections

Hiding folders and items

Altering the data formats read by ArcCatalog

Working with file types

Accessing delimited text file data
Managing the Catalog's contents

The Contents tab

Working in Details view

Changing the columns in Details view

Modifying the default settings for exploring contents

Exploring an item's properties

Organizing your data

Converting data to a different format
Exploring an item's geography

Previewing an item's geographic data

Exploring data in Geography view

Creating thumbnails
Searching for items

About search results

Finding items using the Search tool

Searching with geographic criteria

Searching with temporal criteria

Searching with keywords

Working with search results
Working with metadata
Image and raster data management
Understanding raster data

What is raster data?

Raster bands

Cell size of raster data

Representing features in a raster dataset

Discrete and continuous data

Raster dataset zones and regions

Raster dataset attribute tables

Raster data organization

Gathering basic raster dataset information
Supported raster data
Properties of raster data

About raster dataset properties

Raster pyramids

Raster dataset statistics

Raster compression

About reduced resolution dataset files

About auxiliary files

About proxy files

Defining a raster's coordinate system

Raster dataset colormaps

Bit depth capacity for raster dataset cells

NoData in raster datasets

World files for raster datasets
Designing a raster database
Building and managing a raster database

How raster data is stored in a geodatabase

Exploring geodatabase raster catalogs

Creating raster datasets in a geodatabase

Creating raster catalogs in a geodatabase

Importing raster datasets

Exporting or converting raster datasets

Exporting raster catalogs

Mosaicking raster datasets

Persisting a transformation to a raster dataset without rectifying it

Migrating your 8.x raster catalog

Updating your geodatabase raster catalog footprints

Loading large raster datasets into ArcSDE

Transferring large raster datasets

Building large raster datasets-case studies

Raster data and disconnected editing
Raster display and visualization
Raster analysis and geoprocessing

About analyzing raster data

Making selections using the geodatabase raster catalog

Raster conversion

Core geoprocessing tools for raster data

About environment settings for raster data

Specifying raster storage environment settings

Specifying raster analysis environment settings

Specifying the snap raster environment setting
Serving raster data
Serving raster data
Data support in ArcGIS

An overview of data support in ArcGIS

Data formats supported in ArcGIS
CAD data
The composition of a CAD drawing
Working with CAD data in ArcGIS
Displaying CAD features
Georeferencing CAD data
CAD feature attributes and queries
CAD data translation
Geoprocessing tools for CAD translation
Common CAD data workflows
Coverages

What is a coverage

Summary of coverage feature classes

Coverage resolution (precision)

How coverages are stored

Creating a new coverage

Understanding and maintaining attributes in a coverage

About fields (items) in coverage attribute tables

Creating a new INFO table

About the coverage extent

Coverage tics

Defining a coverage's coordinate system

Coverage topology

Coverage tolerances

Coverage relationships and relationship classes

Coverage data limitations

Importing an ArcInfo interchange file (E00)
NetCDF: multidimensional, time series data
Shapefiles

About shapefiles, dBASE tables, and file types

Shapefile file extensions

Creating new shapefiles and dBASE tables

Adding and deleting fields in shapefiles

Creating and updating indexes in shapefiles

Defining a shapefile's coordinate system

How to salvage a corrupt shapefile
Terrains

An overview of terrain datasets

FAQs for terrain datasets

Terrain dataset troubleshooting

Known limitations of terrain datasets
Understanding terrain datasets
Properties of terrain datasets
Building terrain datasets
Managing terrain datasets
Terrain analysis
Terrain visualization
Extensions

About ArcGIS Desktop extensions

Evaluating ArcGIS Desktop extensions
3D Analyst
Data Interoperability
ArcGIS for AutoCAD
ArcGIS Publisher
Getting started with Publisher
Creating data packages
Creating custom applications
ArcReader
ArcScan
Getting started with ArcScan
Interactive vectorization
Automatic vectorization
Cell selection
Raster cleanup
Vectorization options and settings
ArcSketch
Business Analyst
About ArcGIS Business Analyst
Business Analyst toolbar
Projects and Data Organization
Study Areas
Adding data to Business Analyst
Trade Areas - no customer data required
Trade Areas - customer data required
Trade Areas - monitor and manage
Analysis
Modeling
Tools
Tools - Geoprocessing in Business Analyst
Business Analyst Preferences
Working with maps
Reports - general
Reports - point and ranking based
Documentation - USA Data
Documentation - Canada Data
Business Analyst Server
Territory Design
Geostatistical Analyst
Getting started with Geostatistical Analyst
The principles of Geostatistical Analyst
Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA)
Deterministic methods
Creating a surface with geostatistical techniques
Using analytical tools when generating surfaces
Displaying and managing geostatistical layers
Additional geostatistical analysis tools
Geostatistical simulations
JTX
Maplex
Military Analyst
Military Overlay Editor

About MOLE

What's new in this release

Installation and setup

Accessing the Installing and Getting Started with Defense Solutions guide

MOLE documentation and additional ways to get help
Using MOLE with 2D maps
Using MOLE with 3D maps
The MOLE geodatabase schema
Using MOLE in terrain analysis
Tracking, real-time, and MOLE
Using MOLE with ArcSDE
Using MOLE with ArcIMS
Other ESRI applications compatible with MOLE
Advanced topics
Frequently asked questions
Network Analyst
Getting started with Network Analyst
Network dataset concepts
Designing the network dataset
Building and editing the network dataset
Performing network analysis
Migrating to ArcGIS Network Analyst
Network Analyst tools reference
PLTS

Welcome to PLTS for ArcGIS
What's new in PLTS for ArcGIS
Getting started with Foundation
Production procedures
Managing map documents with the product library
Creating a geodatabase
Editing data in PLTS
Symbolizing data
Validating data with GIS Data ReViewer
Generating grids with the Grid Manager
Creating map series with MPS-Atlas
Working with PLTS cartographic elements
Creating map series with Map Production System
Geoprocessing tools in PLTS for ArcGIS
PLTS for ArcGIS Aeronautical Solution
PLTS for ArcGIS Defense Solution
PLTS for ArcGIS Nautical Solution
PLTS for ArcGIS product specification development
Schematics
Spatial Analyst
Getting started with Spatial Analyst
Solving spatial problems
Performing analysis in Spatial Analyst
The Raster Calculator
Analysis concepts
Spatial Analyst functional reference
Survey Analyst

An overview of Survey Analyst
Cadastral Editor
Survey Editor
Tracking Analyst
Getting started with Tracking Analyst
Working with temporal data
Symbolizing temporal data
Displaying temporal data
Tracking Tools
Charting temporal data
Creating and applying actions
Working with real-time data
Geocoding and address management
Linear referencing
Getting started with linear referencing

An overview of linear referencing

Common tasks in linear referencing

Some linear referencing scenarios

Linear referencing datasets in ArcGIS

Designing a linear referencing system in your geodatabase
Creating route feature classes

An overview of creating route feature classes

Creating route feature classes

Defining the measure properties of your m coordinates

Using existing linear features to create routes

Creating routes from existing lines

About calibrating route measures using points

Calibrating routes with points

Migrating route features to a geodatabase

Accessing the Create Routes wizard

Accessing the Calibrate Routes wizard
Displaying and querying route feature classes
Displaying and querying route events
Editing routes
Creating and editing event data

An overview of creating and editing event data

Creating event tables in ArcCatalog

About locating features along routes

Locating features along routes

Editing event tables in ArcMap
Working with route event data
Network analysis

Using the Network Analyst extension
Analyzing geometric networks
Mobile GIS

An overview of Mobile GIS
ArcGIS Mobile integration
GPS
Tablet PC
ArcPad integration
Interoperability and standards support

Overview of interoperability

Overview of OGC and ISO support

ESRI protocols and programming interfaces
GML support in ArcGIS

An overview of GML support in ArcGIS

How to work with GML in ArcGIS

Using the GML simple features profile

Using supported GML profiles

Adding new GML profiles

Working with WFS within ArcGIS
WFS support in ArcGIS

An overview of WFS support in ArcGIS

Adding support for WFS in ArcGIS Desktop

How to work with WFS using ArcGIS Desktop
WCS support in ArcGIS
WMS support in ArcGIS

An overview of WMS support in ArcGIS
KML support in ArcGIS
Customizing and developing with ArcGIS

An overview of customizing ArcGIS
Customizing the user interface
Writing macros using VBA
Extending ArcGIS desktop applications
Guide to data that comes with ArcGIS
Licensing and desktop administration

Administering the ArcGIS License Manager

Setting up license managers for ArcGIS 93 concurrent use products

Checking license availability

Viewing and changing the license manager

Common license manager problems and how to solve them

Setting the software product

Registering ArcView or ArcEditor and extensions

Evaluating an ArcGIS Desktop extension

Error reporting for ArcGIS software crash data

Frequently asked questions about error reporting
GIS Servers and services