Pitney Bowes MapInfo Professional - Manual (Page 137)

5. Choose Add Field to begin adding new fields to the database's structure. Give the field a name,
type, width, and specify whether the field will be indexed.
6. Continue to add fields until you have the structure you want.
7. Use the Up and Down buttons to reorder the fields. Keep in mind that the order of fields in this dialog
box (top to bottom) will actually display as columns (left to right) in the Browser window.
8. Choose Create. The Create New Table dialog box displays.
9. Specify a location for the new table in the Save in box.
10. Enter a name for the table in the File Name box.
11. Specify the file type in the Save as type drop-down list in one of these formats:
• MapInfo (*.tab)
• dBASE DBF (*.tab)
• Microsoft Access (*.tab)
12. Click Save. One of these things occur:
• If you chose the MapInfo Professional format, MapInfo Professional creates your table.
• If you chose dBASE DBF, proceed to step 13 .
• If you chose dBASE DBF, the dBASE DBF Information dialog box displays, asking you to specify
a file character set. Choose the one appropriate for your language and click OK.
13. Click Save in the Create New Table dialog box. MapInfo Professional creates the new table.
Do not use "Districts" as a name for your base tables. MapInfo Professional uses "Districts"
internally as a system table when beginning a redistricting session. Note:
14. For more information, see Naming a File and Opening Multiple Tables in the Help System.
Creating a New Table by Combining Objects Using Column
If you want to make a new map of the U.S. based on areas such as Midwest, Pacific Coast, Northeast,
etc., you could combine all of the state data and create new objects where some common data value is
the key to which the new map object states will belong.
To do this, you could draw a rectangle somewhere on the States map. Select some states around the
rectangle and specify them as the target. Select the rectangle and do a split operation. The new objects
will be created and each split object will have its same state initials. Then, use Combine Objects Using
Column and specify the state initials fields as the grouping value. The states will be re-created.
The Combine Objects Using Column feature gives you the option of creating a new table for the newly
combined objects:
1. Choose Table > Combine Objects using Column to display the Combine Objects using Column
dialog box.
2. Choose the objects from the table you want to combine.
3. Choose the column you want the objects to be grouped by.
4. Choose New In the Store results in table drop-down list.
5. Click the Next button to display the New Table dialog box.
6. Click the Create button to display the New/Modify Table Structure dialog box.
7. Click the Create button to display the Create New Table dialog box.
8. Click Save and a new table is created.
Editing a Table's Structure
You can make changes to the structure of your table directly in MapInfo Professional. You can add or
remove fields, change the order, name, type, width, or index of any field. You can also specify or determine
the projection of the table from this dialog box. You can also check if the table is mappable (contains
map objects).
137 MapInfo Professional User Guide
Chapter 5: Understanding Your Data