I did quite a bit of web searching for a free Windows program that would allow the geographic latitude and longitude to be extracted from an ESRI shapefile. In the end I got a tip to look for the program called shpdump, and found that it works well. Actually there are three files involved:
.dbf
.shp
.shx
I obtained a copy of shpdump.exe this
page:
http://dl.maptools.org/dl/shapelib/
There is a manual page located here:
http://shapelib.maptools.org/shapelib-tools.html
A number of PC-executable files, including shpdump.exe, are contained within: shapelib129_bin_win.zip . Download this file, or a later version of it if available, and unzip it to extract shpdump.exe.
Shpdump.exe is a DOS program that must be run within a DOS window. Here's
how it looks when it's run:
C:\faults> dir
01/02/2006 05:49 PM 2,667 fltarc.dbf
01/02/2006 05:49 PM 2,156 fltarc.shp
01/02/2006 05:49 PM 204 fltarc.shx
08/30/2001 09:59 AM 57,344 shpdump.exe
C:\faults>shpdump fltarc
Shapefile Type: Arc # of Shapes: 13
File Bounds: ( -122.118, 37.663,0,0)
to ( -122.073, 37.712,0,0)
Shape:0 (Arc) nVertices=7, nParts=1
Bounds:( -122.109, 37.698, 0, 0)
to ( -122.108, 37.700, 0, 0)
( -122.108, 37.698, 0, 0) Ring
( -122.108, 37.699, 0, 0)
( -122.108, 37.699, 0, 0)
( -122.108, 37.699, 0, 0)
( -122.109, 37.700, 0, 0)
( -122.109, 37.700, 0, 0)
( -122.109, 37.700, 0, 0)
etc.
I'll include some of the terms I searched for so that others might be able to find this program.
dump
shp2latlon
shapefile conversion to latitude and longitude points
free software
read shapefile
Good luck!