Connecting to an Excel Table for use in ArcCatalog and ArcMap (read only access) for pre-9.2

To connect to an Excel table so you can use it in ArcCatalog and ArcMap, follow these instructions:

1. Close ArcCatalog before starting any of this.
2. In your Excel table highlight the rows/columns you want in your table, including the field names. This is done so you can possibly have more than one table within an Excel document.
3. From Worksheet Menu Bar, choose Insert > Name > Define. Give it a name.
4. Click OK and Save your document.

5. Open your system Control Panel and choose Administrative Tools > Data Sources (ODBC)
6. On User DSN tab, click Add…
7. Highlight Driver do Microsoft Excel Driver (*.xls) and click Finish.
8. Fill in the Data Source Name with any name you wish. It doesn’t have to be the name of the xls file you are working with.
9. Click Select Workbook…
10. Browse and select your Excel document.
11. In ODBC Microsoft Excel Setup window, click OK.
12. In ODBC Data Source Administrator, click OK.
13. Start ArcCatalog.
14. In the catalog tree, click Database Connections.
15. Double-click Add OLE DB Connection.
16. Highlight Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers. Click Next >>
17. In Use data source name click the down arrow. You should find the name you set in step 8. Choose it.
18. Click Test Connection to see if things are working OK.
19. Click OK. A new entry under Database Connections should be listed by the name of OLE DB Connection.
20. Open OLE DB Connection (or you may rename it first).
21. There should be a table listed by the name you assigned in Step 3 above.