[Qgis-us-user] Newbie question about importing shapefiles and layers from Arcmaps

[Judith Kerman]

Thanks, all. The essential question is that, when I look under the hood at
ArcMaps files, there are multiple files, for instance (shapefiles): .cpg,
.dbf, .prj, .sbn, .sbx, .shp, shp.xml, shx.
If I try to bring them in one by one, I get invalid data type messages for
.cpg, .sbn, .prj, .shp.xml and .sbx
The file types .dbf, .shx and .shp work fine, but all look the same,
including the attribute table. They all have coordinate systems, and they
overlay the way they should visually.

Similarly, the New York State Orthographic imagery has .aux, .j2w, .jp2,
and .tab
When I bring in a file, I can bring in .aux, but QGIS flags it as having a
Read Block error,, and .jp2, which seems to be fine, shows the data just
like it looks in Arcmaps, and seems to contain coordinates. For the other
file types (.j2w and .tab), I get an invalid data type message.

I understand that to get raster files from Arcmaps itself, I have to export
as a TIFF. That works fine, too, and again seems to have coordinates.

The question is: am I losing any data that is contained in the "invalid"
files? Do I need all three of the kinds of shapefile subfiles that seem to
work? They all have the same attribute table contents. Why would ESRI use 8
different subfiles for a "shapefile" and the NY Ortho use 4 (evidently
needed for Arcmaps) if they contain only redundant information? Am I safe
just using one of the ones that work, such as .shp and .p2, and not
worrying about the rest?

Hope that makes the question clearer.

Followup question;:
It would be lovely to just be able to import my Arcmaps work instead of
rebuilding everything. I understand SLYER is expensive. I found an open
source plugin, Mxd2Qgs, that suppsedly would import my map packages, but I
don't understand the documentation. Suggestions?

Thanks! Glad I found this list!

Judy
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