TAB to SHP problem!

Hi all

I have to convert some MapInfo TAB Files to SHP format and I heard that
ogr2ogr could do that job.

So I tried with this command

ogr2ogr -f "ESRI Shapefile" dist.shp source.mif

The conversion was made but all the colors and labels were lost!

Could anybody tell me if it is possible to keep the color and labels?

Thanks a lot!!

SHP files do not support colours, so the answer is no. You can extract the
colour as a field and then transfer it that way.

TAB files do not have labels, unless you mean text objects? These are not
supported in SHP. You will have to move the text into a string field in the
TAB file instead before translating.

Regards
Uffe Kousgaard

"Uffe Kousgaard =D0=B4=B5=C0=A3=BA
"
he

Thanks a lot! Although it's really a bad news for me!

There are thousands of texts on the map!

How can I change them all!

Ask here:
http://groups.google.com/group/mapinfo-l

While this isn't any help to you, it may be useful for you to
understand the general limitations of data transfer between packages.

The data are in general transferrable - that is, the geometry and
attributes of the data. There are exceptions, but these tend to be in
transferring data from a CAD based GIS that supports more complex
geometries than most GIS do. There is considerable work by the GIS
Companies to provide data transfer through the OGC Simple Feature
model; more complex data models are coming (GML 3, for example, allows
full topological structuring to be transferred). But all these feature
models are for data only.

WHat is not in general transferrable is the representation of the data
- that is, colours, line-weights, ornamentation, labels. Usually, the
only way of transferring these is to create attributes in the data
that carry these values. STyled Layer Descriptions are one potentially
portable means of transferring representations from package to
package, but the possibilities it encapsulates are limited compared
with the capabilities of most packages.

Things like text placement are very unlikely to be transferrable,
except in the crudest sense, as different packages treat text in
different ways. Text placement is an even bigger can of worms!

The general philosophy is that data are transferrable; representations
almost certainly aren't.

Good luck!

Paul