How to copy a line feature into a polygon personal geodatabase feature class?

Question

I have a line shapefile with a proposed hiking trail. I am trying to copy this feature into a larger geodatabase feature class. The feature class is set to polygons. Is there a way I can just convert a line to a polygon? or some way to get it into this polygon feature class. It is just a single line, not a grid or parcel lines. I'd like it to be a polygon that just looks like a line, just a few pixels wide.

Answer 1

Use buffer tool (Buffer in ArcMap, Buffer in QGIS). Example in ArcMap:

Input is your line shapefile. Output is a polygon in your database. Set the width of the buffer very small, in example below its 5 meters on each side of line = 10 meters total