Feature Data Sources

Shapefiles are ArcView's native file format for geographic features and attribute data. Shapefiles generally draw faster than other theme sources and you can edit them (move, reshape, add, and delete features and change attribute values) to reflect changes in the source data.
Any of the feature data sources ArcView supports can be converted to a shapefile and then modified.

In the example below, the county coverage contains a set of point features (labelpoint), and two sets of different polygon features (region.cnty and polygon).

ArcView can read feature data stored in any of the following formats: shapefiles, coverages, dBASE tables of x,y coordinates, text files of x,y coordinates, and CAD drawings. (To access a CAD drawing, you must first install ArcView's optional CAD Reader extension.)

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