It sounds as though you are renaming the files to "filename.xxx.csv", or something similar. Although Windows may allow it, you can't have two periods in filenames. Many programs won't recognize them; Access will outright choke on them. Michael D. Golembiewski Transportation Modeler BERKS COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION 633 Court Street FL 14 Reading, PA 19601 Ph: 610 478-6300 ext 6304 Fax: 610 478-6316 e-mail: mgolembiewski(a)countyofberks.com Web: http://www.co.berks.pa.us/dept/planning Note: The comments on and attachment to this e-mail are intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed, and may contain information that is privileged, confidential and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, your are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the original message, any attachment(s) and copies. Thank you for your cooperation. -----Original Message----- From: ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net] On Behalf Of Harun Rashid Sent: Monday, March 21, 2011 3:33 PM To: ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net Subject: [CTPP] RE: how to use Census Redistricting Summary Files in Access In following Mara Kaminowitz's work steps, I'm stuck with instructions in the Census document - '0FILE_STRUCTURE'. I am referring to page 2, instructions under 'For Access Users' - a. using Access 2007 in Windows XP b. Step 3 of Part 1 says 'Unzip the PL files you wish to load into Access and rename the file extension to csv' - after extracting with WinZip, I simply renamed these files to add .csv at end. File types remain 'PL file', as shown in Windows explorer c. Instructions in Part 2 seem to prepared for 2003 versions. When I try to follow similar steps in 2007, the files renamed in previous step are not recognized Any help will be appreciated. Harun Harun Rashid, AICP Senior GIS Planner BCD Council of Governments 1362 McMillan Avenue, Suite 100 North Charleston, SC 29405 T: 843.529.0400 F: 843.529.0305 www.bcdcog.org -----Original Message----- From: ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net] On Behalf Of ctpp-news-request(a)chrispy.net Sent: Friday, February 18, 2011 10:02 AM To: ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net Subject: ctpp-news Digest, Vol 84, Issue 24 Send ctpp-news mailing list submissions to ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://www.chrispy.net/mailman/listinfo/ctpp-news or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to ctpp-news-request(a)chrispy.net You can reach the person managing the list at ctpp-news-owner(a)chrispy.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of ctpp-news digest..." Today's Topics: 1. How to use the Census Redistricting Summary File in Access (Mara Kaminowitz) 2. Re: How to use the Census Redistricting Summary File in Access (Ed Christopher) 3. Re: 2010 Population Data Release (Ed Christopher) 4. Re: 2010 Population Data Release (wendell cox) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2011 09:06:31 -0500 From: "Mara Kaminowitz" <mkaminowitz(a)baltometro.org> Subject: [CTPP] How to use the Census Redistricting Summary File in Access To: <ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net> Message-ID: <E7C1057941BA4C6AB416BCA0737364B2(a)bmc.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Since I have seen a lot questions about this I thought I would post my personal notes. If your state hasn't come out yet I strongly suggest downloading a different state and practicing. Once you get the method down, it will be easy to repeat. These instructions are for Access 2003 but I think they are similar for Access 2007. You will need the following documents. Download them to your computer and keep them close at all times. 0FILE_STRUCTURE.pdf found at http://www2.census.gov/census_2010/01-Redistricting_File--PL_94-171/0FILE_ST RUCTURE.pdf 0GEOID_Construction_for_Matching.pdf found at http://www2.census.gov/census_2010/01-Redistricting_File--PL_94-171/0GEOID_C onstruction_for_Matching.pdf pl94-171_tech_doc.pdf found at http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/doc/pl94-171.pdf 1. Go to http://www2.census.gov/census_2010/01-Redistricting_File--PL_94-171/ and download the access document that matches your MS Access version, either PL2010_Access.accdb or PL2010_Access2003.mdb. 2. In the same directory, go to the folder your state is in and download everything in the folder. 3. Unzip the files. 4. Open the PDF called 0FILE_STRUCTURE.pdf. Read the first page, it has useful information. The go to the section marked "For Access Users" on page 2. FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS EXACTLY. 5. After the tables are imported into Access, you should have the two data tables and the geography table automatically joined by the LOGRECNO field. on the topics of your choice. Start a new query in design view. I recommend starting all queries by adding the entire geography table until you get a feel for which fields you don't need. 6. SUMLEV is the field that will let you extract a particular geography, such as tracts or counties. You can find a full listing of SUMLEVs under Chapter 4 of pl94-171_tech_doc.pdf. So if you want a table that has all the census tracts in your state, type "140" under the Criteria field of the SUMLEV column in your query design. 7. The other two tables list your data fields. The table names are given in the back of 0FILE_STRUCTURE.pdf. 8. Export the query to the format of your choice - Excel, dbf, txt, ect. Note that only the newest Excel program will handle more than 65,000 columns. 9. If you are using the data in GIS, you will need to construct a GEOID field to match the one in the shapefile. The file 0GEOID_Construction_for_Matching.pdf provides formulas for doing this. Concatenate the fields found in the geography half of your exported table into a GEOID field. 10. Analyze! Analyze! Analyze! TIP: Compare the number of records in your shapefile with the numbers of records in your exported table to make sure the table was extracted correctly. Hopefully these steps make things less confusing, not more. Good luck! Mara Mara Kaminowitz GIS Analyst ......................................................................... Baltimore Metropolitan Council Offices at McHenry Row 1500 Whetstone Way Suite 300 Baltimore, MD 21230 410-732-0500 ext. 1030 <mailto:mkaminowitz(a)baltometro.org> mkaminowitz(a)baltometro.org <http://www.baltometro.org/> www.baltometro.org _____ Confidentiality Statement This message may contain legally privileged and confidential information that is intended only for the use of the recipient(s) named above. If you are not an intended recipient, taking any action based on the contents of this message is strictly prohibited. Please immediately notify the sender if you have received this message in error.

I had a similar problem. When you rename the files make sure that you can see the pl extension, otherwise Windows will name it scgeo2010.csv.pl. Access also seems to prefer .txt to .csv. Dan Estersohn Arbitron Inc. -----Original Message----- From: ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net on behalf of Harun Rashid Sent: Mon 3/21/2011 3:33 PM To: ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net Subject: [CTPP] RE: how to use Census Redistricting Summary Files in Access In following Mara Kaminowitz's work steps, I'm stuck with instructions in the Census document - '0FILE_STRUCTURE'. I am referring to page 2, instructions under 'For Access Users' - a. using Access 2007 in Windows XP b. Step 3 of Part 1 says 'Unzip the PL files you wish to load into Access and rename the file extension to csv' - after extracting with WinZip, I simply renamed these files to add .csv at end. File types remain 'PL file', as shown in Windows explorer c. Instructions in Part 2 seem to prepared for 2003 versions. When I try to follow similar steps in 2007, the files renamed in previous step are not recognized Any help will be appreciated. Harun Harun Rashid, AICP Senior GIS Planner BCD Council of Governments 1362 McMillan Avenue, Suite 100 North Charleston, SC 29405 T: 843.529.0400 F: 843.529.0305 www.bcdcog.org -----Original Message----- From: ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net] On Behalf Of ctpp-news-request(a)chrispy.net Sent: Friday, February 18, 2011 10:02 AM To: ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net Subject: ctpp-news Digest, Vol 84, Issue 24 Send ctpp-news mailing list submissions to ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://www.chrispy.net/mailman/listinfo/ctpp-news or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to ctpp-news-request(a)chrispy.net You can reach the person managing the list at ctpp-news-owner(a)chrispy.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of ctpp-news digest..." Today's Topics: 1. How to use the Census Redistricting Summary File in Access (Mara Kaminowitz) 2. Re: How to use the Census Redistricting Summary File in Access (Ed Christopher) 3. Re: 2010 Population Data Release (Ed Christopher) 4. Re: 2010 Population Data Release (wendell cox) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2011 09:06:31 -0500 From: "Mara Kaminowitz" <mkaminowitz(a)baltometro.org> Subject: [CTPP] How to use the Census Redistricting Summary File in Access To: <ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net> Message-ID: <E7C1057941BA4C6AB416BCA0737364B2(a)bmc.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Since I have seen a lot questions about this I thought I would post my personal notes. If your state hasn't come out yet I strongly suggest downloading a different state and practicing. Once you get the method down, it will be easy to repeat. These instructions are for Access 2003 but I think they are similar for Access 2007. You will need the following documents. Download them to your computer and keep them close at all times. 0FILE_STRUCTURE.pdf found at http://www2.census.gov/census_2010/01-Redistricting_File--PL_94-171/0FILE_ST RUCTURE.pdf 0GEOID_Construction_for_Matching.pdf found at http://www2.census.gov/census_2010/01-Redistricting_File--PL_94-171/0GEOID_C onstruction_for_Matching.pdf pl94-171_tech_doc.pdf found at http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/doc/pl94-171.pdf 1. Go to http://www2.census.gov/census_2010/01-Redistricting_File--PL_94-171/ and download the access document that matches your MS Access version, either PL2010_Access.accdb or PL2010_Access2003.mdb. 2. In the same directory, go to the folder your state is in and download everything in the folder. 3. Unzip the files. 4. Open the PDF called 0FILE_STRUCTURE.pdf. Read the first page, it has useful information. The go to the section marked "For Access Users" on page 2. FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS EXACTLY. 5. After the tables are imported into Access, you should have the two data tables and the geography table automatically joined by the LOGRECNO field. on the topics of your choice. Start a new query in design view. I recommend starting all queries by adding the entire geography table until you get a feel for which fields you don't need. 6. SUMLEV is the field that will let you extract a particular geography, such as tracts or counties. You can find a full listing of SUMLEVs under Chapter 4 of pl94-171_tech_doc.pdf. So if you want a table that has all the census tracts in your state, type "140" under the Criteria field of the SUMLEV column in your query design. 7. The other two tables list your data fields. The table names are given in the back of 0FILE_STRUCTURE.pdf. 8. Export the query to the format of your choice - Excel, dbf, txt, ect. Note that only the newest Excel program will handle more than 65,000 columns. 9. If you are using the data in GIS, you will need to construct a GEOID field to match the one in the shapefile. The file 0GEOID_Construction_for_Matching.pdf provides formulas for doing this. Concatenate the fields found in the geography half of your exported table into a GEOID field. 10. Analyze! Analyze! Analyze! TIP: Compare the number of records in your shapefile with the numbers of records in your exported table to make sure the table was extracted correctly. Hopefully these steps make things less confusing, not more. Good luck! Mara Mara Kaminowitz GIS Analyst ......................................................................... Baltimore Metropolitan Council Offices at McHenry Row 1500 Whetstone Way Suite 300 Baltimore, MD 21230 410-732-0500 ext. 1030 <mailto:mkaminowitz(a)baltometro.org> mkaminowitz(a)baltometro.org <http://www.baltometro.org/> www.baltometro.org _____ Confidentiality Statement This message may contain legally privileged and confidential information that is intended only for the use of the recipient(s) named above. If you are not an intended recipient, taking any action based on the contents of this message is strictly prohibited. Please immediately notify the sender if you have received this message in error.