Welcome to the ArcGIS Help Library

Welcome to the help library for the ArcGIS system for GIS practitioners, developers and administrators. This help system focuses primarily on using ArcGIS on the desktop and server environments and how GIS professionals can extend this onto online, web, and mobile devices.

If you're new to ArcGIS, you can start learning about the system now by reading the topics in Getting Started.

The ArcGIS Resource Center

The ArcGIS Resource Center is an essential aspect for using the complete ArcGIS system. It provides access to key user communities, online Help libraries, videos, blogs, forums, samples, support information, templates to help you apply ArcGIS, and much more. You can get connected with other users and begin to find useful and up-to-date information at the Resource Center.

Learning to use ArcGIS Online

You can begin using ArcGIS Online by working through a series of exercises. These will provide an overview for how virtually anyone can use online maps and related information to apply GIS. Plus, you'll read about how ArcGIS users can publish and share their rich content using these online maps.

Learning to use ArcGIS for Desktop

Professional GIS users perform key ArcGIS work on desktops. They build geographic datasets, maps, and analytical models to perform their work. They also use Desktop as a publishing dashboard for sharing their geographic information on the web. You can begin learning how to use ArcGIS for Desktop through the tutorial workbook named Understanding GIS: An ArcGIS Project Workbook.

You can use this book to work through a complete GIS project and to learn about the broad capabilities provided by ArcGIS for Desktop. This comprehensive guide requires a few days to complete all of the exercises.

In-application help for Desktop

By hovering the pointer over buttons or menu items in the system, you can access ToolTips for each tool. Some ToolTips provide access to a related topic in the help system, which are accessed by pressing F1.

Also, on many dialog boxes, there are "About..." links to take you directly to the related help topic in the Help system.