Getting Started

You will need to download two programs to read our laboratory exercises. Click on the program name to go to the website, and downlaod their software. Don't pay for anything, the version you will need should be free.

1) Winzip (or any other compression software)

2) Adobe Acrobat Reader

Both of these programs have a specific purpose. Winzip is a compression program. What this means is that it takes a number of large GIS files, and shrinks them down (using a complex algorithm) into one small file, that is easier to download. I need this program compress the GIS files, but you, the end user, must also have the software program installed on your computer in order to take this nice small file and convert it back to GIS files that ArcView can use (i.e. uncompress the file).

Adobe acrobat reader is a program that reads PDF files. These files are a type of universal electronic reading software. On some sites you can download entire books in this format. This program will work on most platforms, and these files tend to be more stable then word processing files, (e.g MS WORD), and the best part is that the reader is free. All of my laboratory programs are written in PDF format and must be read by the program Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Once you have downloaded and installed both of these programs, download Lesson 1 to your desktop, or a place, that you will remember. To do this, first open our download page, by clicking here, this will open a new browser window. Now, right click on the blue link labeled Lesson 1 and choose Save Target As… and then choose the folder where you want the data to be saved.

Now you need to Unzip (or decompress the files). This will take the one small file and create several small files in a folder that you will create in the process. First you need to create a folder on your hard drive to store all of these files in. To do this go to your C:\ drive. (My Computer> double click on the C:\ ) now right click, select the new > folder option. Name this folder “gis-lessons”. Note: Never use spaces when naming folders to use with GIS, ArcView does not handle spaces in folder names, and this can actually crash ArcView. Now that you have the folder ready, you are ready to extract the GIS data and the lab exercises. To do this, right click on the lesson1.zip file on your desktop and click the “Extract to…” option. Now Winzip will ask you to specify the location that you want the files extracted to. Use the Browse section and type “C:\gis-lessons\lesson1\ “ This will tell Winzip to put all of the gis data and the lab exercises in this folder.

Now use My Computer or Windows Explorer to navigate to C:\gis-lessons\lesson1\. Open this folder. ArcView comes with its own set of data, that we will use this sample data. For your first lesson.