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I am trying to create a street index a City. I have a table that has all the street names and their grid references. I am looking to create a street index using that. I think turning off the undesired fields off leaving only the main three columns I need and then outputting that would work. That instead creates a really long table. I would like to break that table into columns so I can add it to street maps. In the end I need an index that looks like this.

Street Index sample

That is the end goal. If there is a way through python I am willing to attempt that as well. That right now is created by polylines and a white polygon in the background and an annotation layer for the text. All done by hand. I need to have it automated so once a new input is made the user does not have to create and enter in a new annotation and create the correct size of a table.

I am using ArcGIS 10.3 on a Windows 7 computer. Let me know if any additional information is needed.

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  • Related questions: gis.stackexchange.com/questions/93519 and gis.stackexchange.com/questions/4727 As far as I know, working with/formatting tables is pretty limited in ArcGIS. You may want to explore using Reports to do this. – Chris W May 26 '15 at 18:14
  • I have followed the links to get to the point where I have an excel file but then that is just two columns with over 2000 rows. I need to build a table even if it is just using lines and annotations like the table above, but instead of done by hand have it done by using arcpy or a tool. I will take a look at reports though. – Sharm May 26 '15 at 18:17
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    You should be able to get three columns into Excel. Getting those three long columns to properly break up to a page layout is another story. Usually such index pages are created outside of Arc and then incorporated into the final document. Unless the index appears on each page and only relates to the streets/grids on that page, which would be dynamic table. Some other questions that may be of use: gis.stackexchange.com/questions/85592 and gis.stackexchange.com/questions/37025 and gis.stackexchange.com/questions/81986 – Chris W May 26 '15 at 18:26
  • I agree with Chris, this table of yours has over 2000 records, fitting it into your page layout and beside your map is the main issue of your question. – Farid Cheraghi May 26 '15 at 19:07
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I don't believe there is any way to achieve the layout you are seeking with a native table in ArcMap.

There is an alternative approach which may be easier to maintain and that is using Excel.

  1. Create your 12 column table as shown in your example above using Excel.
  2. Save this document.
  3. In Layout, insert an Object, make sure you are creating from a file and that Link is ticked on

Step 1 is achieved by you copying the original table into Excel and YOU manually chopping it up into 12 columns (or what ever you desire). You need to chop it up as to my knowledge there is no automatic way of arranging the table as you desire.

As you have chosen it to be a Link any additional edits to the Excel document will be reflected in the inserted table in your Layout.

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  • Yeah it seems like that is the way to do it for now. thanks for all of your replies guys. Hopefully this issue is addressed in an update. You would think breaking up an attribute table would not be so hard in the new releases of ArcGIS. – Sharm May 26 '15 at 19:13
  • Is there a way to create polylines such as the ones in the table above in python? I was thinking about just creating the grid in python and then building the annotations from the excel table in python as well. Reformatting that table will take forever for every map that is made. There are over 2000 streets. Having a script that can do most of the work would be very helpful I would think. – Sharm May 27 '15 at 13:21

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