PROBLEM
When adding an Excel sheet to ArcMap, numeric fields default to the Double type.
Field types specified in Excel are not read by ArcGIS. Instead, the field types are determined by reading the first eight rows for that field. If mixed data types are found in a single field, that field is returned as a string and the values are converted to strings. If the values are found to be numeric, the field is returned as a Double.
Currently, Excel fields can only be converted to one of two types, String or Double. To change the field type, the sheet must be converted to a read/write table format such as dBase IV, CSV, or geodatabase tables.
Article ID: 000009538
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