Barend Kobben wrote: > SHP is a secret and proprietary format, and it often changes in > unpredictable ways. There is no reliable free reader for it. Secret format - no way! The document [1] "ESRI Shapefile Technical Description - An ESRI White Paper" has been around for more than 10 years. [1] http://www.esri.com/library/whitepapers/pdfs/shapefile.pdf Craig