Shapefile Converter

The survey team's plot boundaries arrive as a Google Earth file and meet a mapping program that only opens shapefiles. The detour runs through installing GIS software or uploading confidential land data to a converter website. Shapefile Converter does the work inside the browser tab, and the privacy page says the file never reaches its servers.

A map preview shows every placemark before conversion, which catches a misread file early. Each shapefile holds one kind of shape, so points, lines and polygons come out as separate files in one ZIP. Names and extra data fields become columns, even the small tables Google Earth tucks into descriptions. Coordinates stay in plain latitude and longitude, or the tool suggests a UTM zone for distances in metres.

Eleven more converters on the site go from shapefile back to KML and on to GeoJSON, GPX and Excel sheets. The about page says each direction is tested by converting files there and back and checking them with GDAL, the library behind QGIS. Files can be up to 20 MB, and a loaded page keeps working without a connection.