New Member Introduction…

[SteveBoulanger]

Hi!

I am Steve Boulanger. I am a new member here. Hope to have great time ahead with all of you.

[Nathaniel]

Welcome, Steve! Glad to have you.

[stujames]

Hi

I work for Dorling Kindersley and over the past year have started doing some freelance work, I came across your site and would very much like to use the data to create some maps but I’m having a few problems!

I have downloaded a load of physical data, file types such as .dbf .shp etc. but I don’t appear to have any software to open them. I work on macs and would like to be able to import this information into Adobe Illustrator so that I can work with it, is that possible? If you could point me in the direction of some free software that would enable me to do this I would be eternally grateful!

Thanks

Stu

[Nathaniel]

@Stu: Welcome! There is a pay plugin for Illustrator called MaPublisher that is quite good. But there is also free option called QGIS that works on the Mac. You’ll be able to open the files in that app, do some basic composition, and export as vector and finish designing in Illustrator.

http://www.qgis.org/

[stujames]

Hi, thanks for the quick response.

And thanks so much for that link, I’ve downloaded qgis and have imported all the shape files, I’ve had a bit of play and have gone through the menus but I can’t seem to work out a couple of things, hopefully you can help.

Firstly I would really like to be able to use the physical text labels, I have downloaded them and imported them but can only see the points and no text, what am I doing wrong?

Also, how do I export to an Illustrator compatible file?

Sorry to be a pain in the arse! I’m sure I could probably work it out if I spent a few hours on it but thought it might be quicker to ask.

Thanks again

Stu

[Nathaniel]

The physical label areas include point, line, and polygon feature classes. You need to load all three, and likely the polygon version, to see all of them. If you export as EPS, SVG, or PDF, it will open into Illustrator. You will prob. need to turn on the labeling function for the layers. If you poke around a bit you’ll see where that is on the layer properties (I’m not in front of QGIS at the moment).

[stujames]

Hi

Thanks again for the quick reply, I’ve now got the text showing which is great but I still can’t see how to export to any of those formats, Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Stu

[Nathaniel]

See if this works: http://forum.qgis.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=818

[stujames]

Hi

Thanks that worked, the text is outlined which is a bit annoying but there doesn’t seem to be a way around that. I can’t seem to see country borders for downloading, are they not available?

Thanks

Stu

[stujames]

Sorry, I was being slow! I have found them. thanks for all your help.

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