How to Create a Mapinfo Map Catalog Using Easy Loader

Hello everyone, welcome to another Mapinfo Tutorial. In this article, we are going to learn about the Map Catalog. I will show how to create a Mapinfo Map Catalog using the Easy Loader tool. Mapinfo Map Catalog is used when we are connecting and opening the DBMS table/database. For example, you are going to export your local Mapinfo table to the PostGIS or SQL Server or Oracle database.

What is the Mapinfo Map Catalog?

Mapinfo stores information about the spatial tables in the database. The information is stored in a table called mapinfo_mapcatalog (the map catalog). The mapinfo_mapcatalog is a registry table for databases that stores metadata about the spatial information of a table or view in the database. The MAPINFO_MAPCATALOG uses the tablename and ownername as the key to identifying the spatial type, spatial column, projections, data bounds, and rendition information. So basically, this Mapinfo_mapcatalog only usable when you are working with RDBMS databases such as Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Oracle.

Steps to Create Mapinfo Map Catalog Table using Easy Loader Tool

Mapinfo Easy Loader tool is available on Mapinfo Professional. First, we need to load the Easy Loader tool:

1. Click Home >> Tool Extensions >> Registered. Enable the Mapinfo Easy Loader to autoload.
2. Go to the Running section on the Tool Extensions and find the Easy Loader Tool. Double click it to open.

Since we already enable the autoload feature, this tool will be loaded automatically next time you start Mapinfo Pro.

Now move to the next steps to create Mapinfo Map Catalog. Once the Easy Loader Tool is running, we need to create a new database connection.

1. On the Easy Load Tool window, click the drop-down menu next to the Database Connection. Choose New Connection and then click the icon next to it.
2. Give the new connection a name and enter the ODBC database connection details. Click Connect to start the connection and then press OK. Please read this post if you want to create a new ODBC Connection in Windows 10.
3. Once the connection to the database is made, click MapCatalog icon on the bottom left of the window.
4. If there are tables in the MapCatalog, you will see the list of the tables. But if not, the list will be empty.

Thanks for reading this article. Please leave us comments if you have any queries about How to create a new Mapinfo MapCatalog using Mapinfo Easy Loader Tool.