

On the Scaling page, make sure the File Rectangle units are in map units.ī. These map types are not suitable for export to SHP. The only time you cannot export in map units is when you export 3D surface or wireframe maps. If you are using an older version of Surfer (Surfer 11 or earlier), then there are a few extra steps you may need to do to get map units in the File Rectangle boxes (see our KB article online). It is very important that the coordinates under File Rectangle are in map units. This will set the File Rectangle coordinates to map units and allow the map to be exported in the map units. On the Scaling page, make sure the Scaling source is set to Map.

All attributes are stored in the associated DBF file for the SHP. In addition, if you have objects in a base layer that have attributes, those attributes are exported to the SHP file as well. You might ask, “What about attributes?” When exporting to a SHP file in Surfer 13, the Z value of the contour lines are exported as attributes to the associated DBF file.

DXF, MIF, GeoTIFF, etc.) but I will focus on SHP for this article.

There are other formats you can choose (e.g. You can just click File | Export from Surfer and export to a shapefile (*.SHP). Over the years, one of the most common questions asked is “How can I get my contour map out of Surfer mapping software and into ArcMap?” It's actually quite easy to get maps from Surfer into ArcMap.
