CREATING NEW SHAPEFILES

1) Open Arcmap Project, click Start, All Programs, ArcGIS, Arcmap or click

2) Arcmap will open in a short while and will prompt you to open “new emty map”, “a template”
or “An existing map”. Select “A new empty map” to open a new project. Select “An empty
project” to browse an existing or previous projects, then click “OK”.
3) Arcmap 9.3 interface will be displayed.

4) Click to Open ArcCatalog Box

5) In ArcCatalog, browse for the source drive to create a new folder as your designated workspace
to save all data. For example, in Drive D:\ create a new folder by clicking “File”, “New”, “Folder”.
A “New Folder” will appear on the ArcCatalog window frame. Rename “New Folder” to your
preferred folder name. For this exercise rename “New Folder” to “TRAINING FOLDER”

6) Double click “TRAINING FOLDER”. Your Location will be D:\TRAINING FOLDER . Your ArcCatalog
Window will appear as blank.
7) Create new features or shapefiles in “TRAINING FOLDER”. Click “File”, “New”, “Shapefile” to
create a new shapefile. Default name given by ArcMap will be “New_Shapefile. You can change
the name of the “ New_Shapefile” with your preferred name. In this exercise, type “CREATE
POINT” to create new shapefile for Point Feature Type, “CREATE POLYLINE” for Polyline Feature
Type, and “CREATE POLYGON” for Polygon Feature Type.
8) To assign a spatial reference and coordinate system to the created features, click “Edit” button.
To create a customize projection, click the “New” button, “Projected” .

9) In New Projected Coordinate System Dialogue Box, type the name of your Coordinate System.
Type “UTM_LUZON” in the Name Box. Ina Projection Name, click pull down arrow menu and
click “Transverse Mercator”. Input Value opposite to the Paramter record, “False_Easting” enter
“500000”; “Central_Meridian” enter “123” and for the “Scale_Factor” enter “0.9996”
10) For the Geographic Coordinate System, click “Select” button, double click folder “Asia”, select “
“Luzon 1911”, and click “Add”, Then click “Finnish”
11) To save the customized Projection and Coordinate System in the ArcGIS Coordinate System, click
“Save As” button and browse in C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\Coordinate Systems\Projected
Coordinate Systems then create folder by clicking “New Folder” button
and rename it as “GCSLUZON1991”. Double click “GCSLUZON1991” folder and type
“UTM_LUZON” at the name of the coordinate system and click “Save”.
12) Click “OK” until the created new shapefile appears in the ArcCatalog Window frame

13) Repeat procedures for “CREATE POLYLINE” and “CREATE POLYGON” shapefiles except in
assigning spatial reference and coordinate system. You can now assign a spatial reference and
coordinate system by clicking “Select”, “Projected Coordinate System”, “GCSLUZON1911”, and
select “UTM_LUZON” and click “Add” , then click “OK” until the created new shapefile appears
in the ArcCatalog Window frame
14) To add data in Arcmap table of contents under Layer, In ArcCatalog select created shapefiles and
click then drag shapefiles to the Layers data frame. The selected shapefiles will be added to the
Table of Contents Layer Data Frame.
15) Another way of adding data to the Table of Contents, click shortcut button and browse
the location of your shapefiles, select shapefiles then click “Add”. The selected shapefiles will
added to the Table of Contents in the Layer data frame.
ADD POLYGON To THE “CREATE POLYGON” SHAPEFILES

19) In Editor toolbar, click “Start Editing”

20) Set the Task to “Create New Feature” and set the Target to “CREATE POLYGON

21) Select Sketch Tool to start drawing polygon features. Finish sketch by double clicking. A
polygon will be displayed in the data view. To save edits, click “Editor”, “Save Edits, and click “Stop
Editing”.
How to create new shapefiles in ArcCatalog

Creating a new shapefile

1. Select a folder or folder connection in the Catalog tree.

2. Click the File menu, point to New, and click Shapefile.
3. Click in the Name text box and type a name for the new shapefile.
4. Click the Feature Type drop-down arrow and click the type of geometry the shapefile will
contain.
5. Click Edit to define the shapefile's coordinate system.
6. Select, import, or define a new coordinate system.

It's highly recommended that you define the shapefile's coordinate system now; however,
you can postpone this step until a later time.

7. Click OK.
8. If the shapefile will store polylines representing routes, check Coordinates will contain M
values.
9. If the shapefile will store three-dimensional features, check Coordinates will contain Z
values.
10. Click OK.

The new shapefile appears in the folder's contents.