What is a .TAB file?
TAB is the table format of MapInfo, a long-running GIS package.
- Did you know
- TAB is to MapInfo what the shapefile is to Esri’s ArcGIS.
- The TAB file itself is a tiny text descriptor - the actual geometry lives in companion .map, .dat and .id files.
- MapInfo was developed by MapInfo Corporation, later absorbed into Pitney Bowes Software.
- What Analyser reads
- Inspect geospatial and GIS files without a map: TopoJSON, OpenStreetMap XML, Esri Shapefile siblings (SHP/SHX/DBF/PRJ/CPG), world files, GML, NMEA GPS logs, IGC flight logs, MapInfo TAB/MIF, GDAL VRT, PMTiles, DTED terrain, Esri ASCII grids and SRTM .hgt - surfacing CRS/EPSG, feature/record counts, bounding boxes and elevation ranges. GRIB/NetCDF/GeoPackage/MBTiles/MrSID/ECW identified.
- Depth of analysis
- .TAB is an identification-grade format: Analyser recognises it from its bytes and decodes the header metadata it carries, rather than opening it in a full viewer. Formats that do get a full viewer are marked "Full" on the formats page.
- Open a .TAB file
- Drag a .TAB file onto the Analyser home page (or tap to pick one). It is identified entirely in your browser - nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and it works offline once installed.