ESRI shape files into Map 2008, get error

[Openwheeler]

Bringing in these shape files from a client, I get an error of "no 2 consecutive occurrences" and the shape file doesn't import???

I need to find out what the fields are within the shapes, such as, type of water value, manufacture, or year installed, etc...

Is there a way to find out what information within a shape file without importing it? I don't think there is, but maybe someone has had this error too.

Thanks for the help.

[Jmurphy]

Try connecting to the shp file with the data connect. Even if it errors out you should be able to view the data schema in the schema editor. Also there are a few free shp viewers out there if you do a google search, try one to view the file(s).

[Openwheeler]

Ok, thanks. I'll try these things and get back to this thread.

[Openwheeler]

Try connecting to the shp file with the data connect. Even if it errors out you should be able to view the data schema in the schema editor. Also there are a few free shp viewers out there if you do a google search, try one to view the file(s).

We couldn't get the data connect to work so I started to search the forums on the ESRI site for some answers, and with some searching found that we had been missing some of the files in order to read/view the shape files. You must have all 3 of the types of files in order to view them correctly. We went ahead and downloaded the ESRI explorer to view them…Ta-da! We got all the fields information that we needed for the project. Thanks for the search tip that paid off big time for us, which lead to learning more about shape files.