Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your TFW file.
You’ll see a preview, if available.
Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.
Convert TFW to another file type
To convert TFW world files to another format, you need ArcGIS or other GIS software.
Convert a file to TFW
To convert other file formats to the "GIS World File" file type, you need software like ArcGIS or a similar tool.
About TFW files
A .TFW file is a plain text "world file" used in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to geographically position, scale, and rotate a corresponding TIF raster image. It acts as an external sidecar file, telling mapping software exactly where the image belongs on the Earth's surface. Originally developed by Esri, these files are read by nearly all major GIS platforms, including ArcGIS, QGIS, and translation libraries like GDAL. The primary disadvantage of a .TFW file is that it is fundamentally incomplete. It contains no actual image data, and it lacks Coordinate Reference System (CRS) or projection definitions (which require a separate PRJ file). Because it is a separate text file, it frequently gets detached from its parent image during transfers, rendering the original TIF completely useless for spatial mapping. Furthermore, it requires specific GIS desktop software to interpret, making it unreadable for standard web browsers. To resolve these fragile file dependencies, you should merge your external .TFW and TIF files into a single embedded GeoTIFF for archiving. For web mapping applications, convert your spatial data to GeoJSON or KML (for Google Earth). Drop your file here to view and convert it securely right in your browser using convert.guru - free, online, and without installing complex, bloated GIS software.
Convert.Guru analyzes your TFW file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert TFW file to TIFF, SHP, KML, KMZ, GPX, GEOJSON, TOPOJSON, TIF, ECW, SID, IMG or DEM, you can use ArcGIS or similar software from the "Raster Image Georeferencing" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert LAZ, KMZ, DTM, CSV, DEM, PRJ, LAS, GPX, DSM, SHP, DBF or KML files to TFW, try ArcGIS or another comparable tool in the "Raster Image Georeferencing" category.
The TFW Converter Story
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our TFW converter.