From an ArcMap document to a QGIS project
Moving from ArcMap to QGIS usually means rebuilding every map by hand: adding the layers again,
redoing the classes and colours, the labels and the print layout. Upload the .mxd instead and
you get a .qgz project that already has all of that.
What comes across:
- The layer tree: group layers, the drawing order, which layers are switched on, and the minimum and maximum scales. Each data frame becomes a map theme, so a document with an overview map and a main map keeps both.
- The symbology: single symbols, unique values on one or more fields, graduated colours and symbols, proportional symbols, dot density and charts, with every symbol layer (fills, hatches, gradients, picture fills, dashed and offset lines, marker lines, character markers).
- Labels with their expression, font, size, colour, halo, placement and scale range, one rule per label class.
- Definition queries, transparency, field aliases and hidden fields.
- The page layout as a QGIS print layout: map frames with their scale and grids, legends, scale bars, north arrows, text, pictures and graphics.
Getting the data paths right
A project is only useful if QGIS finds the data. The converter keeps the paths the way ArcMap
stored them; relative paths keep working when the data sits next to the project, and absolute
paths inside the document's folder are made relative. Upload a ZIP of the whole project folder
(the .mxd with its shapefiles, file geodatabases and rasters) and the layers are matched to the
files inside it; you get the folder back with the .qgz next to the .mxd. If the data has moved
since, give the old and the new folder under "More options".
Pitfalls
- Layers from an enterprise geodatabase need a connection QGIS can use. The project keeps the server and database names; check the data source report for each one.
- ArcMap documents saved with absolute paths on a drive you no longer have open as unavailable layers. QGIS keeps their style, and Change Data Source repairs them one by one.
- Cartographic representations and some special effects have no QGIS counterpart; the conversion notes list each layer where a simpler symbol was used.
More about what this tool reads and writes: ArcMap MXD to QGIS Converter.