How to export .mdb file to shapefile?

Question

I have received some GIS files, in .mdb format.

Is it possible to project this .mdb file onto my map; say by converting it into shapefile etc?

In Mapinfo Professional, i could open this .mdb file but i don't know if i could translate it to another format.

Kindly advise & thank you in advance.

Best- Anna.

Aragon · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-04 06:21:43Z

up vote 1 down vote accepted

use:

Tools > Universal Translator > Universal Translator

if not save your file as .tab file then use ut.

i hope it helps you...

answered Jun 4 '12 at 6:21

Aragon
12.6k21448

	Hello there~ 1) in universal translator, there is no '.mdb' to '.shp' option. 2) So i went to Mapping Wizard Tool, run mapping wizard, data, open .mdb. This process generated a .tab file. 3) If i were to open this .tab file in Mapinfo, it is like an 'excel sheet'. So i went back to Universal translator, to change .tab to .shp, & got error. 4) I am not familiar with .mdb file. When i double click it open, it opens in an excel sheet format. Are they georeferenced? 5) My .mdb file source is from here: euromedaviation.org/386.0.html?&L=1%20target%3D Thank you!! – Anna Jun 4 '12 at 10:02
	.mdb is microsoft database file. By default will be read by Microsoft Access. In your case, this is personal database used by ESRI. Your information is stored in this database as Feature Classes, which are equivalent to .shp file. So if you want to use it in ESRI world, you do not need to convert it (just open from ArcMap or Catalog). If you want to extract this data to use in other application you do it easly with ESRI products or open source OGR drivers. – Tomek Jun 4 '12 at 11:17
	So happy!!! downloaded a trial copy of esri & used Catalog to convert it.. thank youuu Tomek & Aragon :) – Anna Jun 4 '12 at 13:29

artwork21 · Answer 2 · 2012-06-04 14:51:39Z

up vote 2 down vote

As @Tomek has suggested you can use ogr library using ogr2ogr(FWTools), see example below:

ogr2ogr -f "ESRI Shapefile" output_dir mydatabase.mdb

answered Jun 4 '12 at 14:51

artwork21
10.7k11351

2 Answers