Format specifications

No interchange format stores everything the project stores: each one keeps a part and discards the rest. What follows is the detail of each one, on import and on export; for everyday use the practical rule at the end is enough.

Shapefile (.shp)

Shapefile is the most requested format for taking data into ArcGIS or QGIS, and also the most limited: it is geometry plus a DBF table, a format from the nineties. Almost everything that "gets lost" on export is a limitation of the format itself, not of Field Manager. It is worth knowing before putting together the deliverable for the client or the office.

Kept:

• The geometry, including the Z and M components when the table has them.
• The projection: the .prj file is written with the table's actual reference system.
• All fields, with their types converted to the DBF's: text, numeric (integer or with decimals), boolean and date as fixed-format text.
• The companion files the format needs: .shx, .dbf, .prj and, when applicable, .cpg, .sbn and .sbx. When moving a shapefile you have to copy all of them, not just the .shp.

Lost or degraded:

• Column names are truncated to 10 characters and normalized (no accents or spaces). If two names collide after truncation, a numeric index is appended and they can become unrecognizable. For the same reason there are no aliases or domains: the DBF has nowhere to store them.
• Text longer than 254 characters is truncated. The application warns which fields it truncated, but the data already comes out cut in the file.
• A table with geometries of different types splits into several layers (points, lines, polygons, multipoint): Shapefile only supports one type per file. What was exported as one table arrives at the GIS as several.
• Decimal precision can be trimmed if the field width doesn't fit the DBF's limit.
• There is no native date type: dates travel as text with a fixed pattern.
• Field Manager's metadata doesn't travel: dynamic styles, filters, labels or geocoders. The native .fmr format exists to preserve them.

On import you have to bring the complete set of files, not just the .shp: without the .dbf the layer arrives with no attributes, and without the .prj, with no projection. If an ArcGIS .lyrx comes alongside it, its symbology is recovered as a dynamic style (see Dynamic styles).

If the result in ArcGIS or QGIS isn't what you expected, see Troubleshooting, which also covers problems when importing a shapefile.

MapInfo TAB and MIF

• On export, TAB keeps the style if you ticked Apply dynamic style; on import, if the .TAB carries a graduated thematic map, it is recovered as a dynamic style (see Dynamic styles).
• Column names are normalized —unaccented letters, digits and underscore— but they accept up to 254 characters, so they aren't cut short as in SHP. If two end up identical after normalization, a number is appended.
• Text longer than 254 characters is truncated, and the application reports in which fields it happened.
• MIF/MID is the text variant of the same format: it is exported —it generates the two files, .mif and .mid— but not imported.

Excel (.xls, .xlsx, .xlsm)

• On import, each sheet of the workbook becomes a table. The application locates the block of data even if it is offset within the sheet, takes the first non-empty row as the header and detects the data type of each column, respecting columns formatted as text (for example, codes or identifiers with leading zeros are not converted into numbers).
• If a sheet carries a column called geometry or geom, it is read as geometry (in WKT format); if the projection cannot be deduced, you are asked to choose the coordinate system.
• On export, a sheet is written with all the table's columns plus a geometry column, which is what makes it possible to import the file back with its geometries.
• If the table has a geocoder assigned, the headers of the columns whose selector defines a title colour in the geocoder take on that same colour.
• A workbook containing the JSON_MAKER sheet is not a table but a geocoder, and it is imported as such (see Geocoders).

CSV (.csv)

It is imported and exported like any other table. On import, the application detects the separator (comma, semicolon or tab) and the file encoding on its own. On export it writes the same columns as the XLS format and adds a geometry column holding the geometry as WKT, which is what it reads back if you re-import that same file. ⚠️ A CSV does not store each column's type, unlike an .xlsx: on re-import, the type is inferred from the values. It is the most portable format on this list and the least precise.

KML and KMZ

They support points, lines and polygons mixed in the same layer, with their style (a KMZ is a compressed KML). On import, the file's attributes are recovered with their type, not just the name and the description. A KML that contains an overlaid image (GroundOverlay) instead of geometries is imported as a georeferenced raster layer, placed according to the rectangle the file defines (see Vector, raster and WMS layers).

ESRI Geodatabase (.gdb) and GeoPackage (.gpkg)

An ESRI Geodatabase is a .gdb folder —it can also be shared compressed in a .zip— and, as such, it is selected directly in the file browser when importing, just as if it were a file. A layer with mixed geometries is automatically split into _puntos, _lineas and _poligonos tables; on export, one layer is generated per geometry family, and if a .gdb already exists at the destination it is opened in update mode and the layer with the same name is replaced.

A GeoPackage (.gpkg) is a single file, not a folder, and it is the interchange format that best preserves the data: it keeps the project's projection without reprojecting and the real column types, free of the name and type limits that SHP or TAB have. It is the most advisable one for exchanging with another GIS.

Rasters, images and PDF

From a raster the application imports only the reference to the file, not a copy: the file has to stay on the device while the layer is in use. The georeferencing is recognized from the file itself or from the ones accompanying it, and rasters are not exported to other formats. The detail is in Vector, raster and WMS layers, including the 1 gigapixel limit of JPEG2000 and ECW, which GeoTIFF does not have.

ArcGIS styles (.lyrx and .lpkx)

A .lyrx carries the symbology of an ArcGIS layer and is imported as a dynamic style, both on its own and alongside the shapefile it describes. An .lpkx (Layer Package) is a compressed package that also carries the data: importing it loads the layer and its symbology together.

Native format (.fmr)

It is Field Manager's own format for the resources that are not data: filters, dynamic styles, geocoders and bulk editors. It is the only one that keeps them as they are, so it is what to use to take to another project or another device the configuration that doesn't travel in a SHP or in a spreadsheet. It is exported and imported from the manager of each type of resource.

Practical rule: for anything going to the GIS, export to GeoPackage, SHP or TAB, and never to Excel (the spreadsheet doesn't preserve the column type or the geometry as such); and if you also need to keep the project's configuration —styles, filters, geocoders—, send the corresponding .fmr files along with the delivery.