1. Why am I experiencing problems converting the 2002 TIGER/Line files?
The Census Bureau made major structural changes to the 2002 TIGER/Line file format. Record types were added and deleted and several record types were expanded and substantially revised by rearranging the location of the data fields. Translation/conversion software designed for use with the Census 2000 and previous versions of the TIGER/Line files will not work correctly with the 2002 TIGER/Line files. The Census Bureau notified vendors providing translation/conversion software of the changes to the structure of the 2002 TIGER/Line files in June 2002.
2. I have been having problems with the compressed files that I download. I get an error message when I try to unzip the file. Please advise.
One of our quality checks is downloading the files and decompressing them. We have not found any problems. However, we have heard from several users who have had problems decompressing the files using WinZip. You should try using PKWARE's PKZIP instead. They offer a free trial download.
