Here we collect answers to question that come up very often.
If you are trying to download QGIS and nothing seems to happen, please consult the download manager of your browser. It can usually be found as an icon (based on arrow, stop-watch or pie-chart) at the top-right corner of your browser window. Click on the icon to see the download progress or cancel the download. The normal procedure with downloads in the browser is such, that it first asks you where to save the file (with a file browser dialogue) and then you have to wait until the download is finished. Because QGIS install packages can be rather large, depending on the operating system, you have to be patient. The download size can be anywhere between several hundred megabytes to sometimes more than one gigabyte (in case of MS Windows MSI packages). Depending on your download speed and the QGIS server load, downloads can take from several minutes up to several hours.
This is a misconception that we hear from time to time, but it is not true. Donating to QGIS is optional. After downloading QGIS, there is a message appearing, reminding that you can optionally donate to QGIS. However, you can press “Close this message” and continue downloading without any problem. We want QGIS to be accessible to anyone, no matter how your financial situation might be. If you are a first-time QGIS user, we recommend that you download, install and test QGIS first and find out if the software is useful for the tasks you want to solve. Only if you like QGIS and it substantially helps with your business, tasks or processes, you should think about donating towards QGIS or supporting it as a sustaining member.
If you are going to ask a QGIS related question via the mailing lists, please provide enough information to help others easily understand what your problem is. Without a clear and precise question, it is very hard for anybody to answer, or it just takes too much time because the answer will be a question to you etc etc. You may provide information such as:
preferably a descriptive title for your email
which QGIS version you used at that moment (exact)
what are you expecting to get
if applicable, what have you tried and the result you got
if your question is about something broken, you may also provide:
Keep in mind that the more precise your question is, the quicker and more accurate the answer can be.
In case of a broken function, you may give a look at QGIS issue tracker before mailing to the list. More information at bug-reporting.
After a successful developer meeting in Zurich (Switzerland), we decided that the next release should be related to it. Since then, all releases have been named after locations of our developer meetings.
ECW is a proprietary file format - please consult their Licensing Page to understand how you may use it. Also, please consult the GDAL documentation for notes on how to enable licensed features if you have a paid version of ECW. ECW support is not included in all QGIS binary versions and for all platforms by default.
Platform specific notes:
Windows: If you are using Windows and have downloaded the offline installers (provided by the download buttons labelled Long Term Version for Windows (3.34 LTR) and Latest Version for Windows (3.40)), ECW read support is included by default.
If you are using the OSGeo4W Network Installer, ECW support is installed by default if you use the express install workflow. If manually selecting components, you need to explicitly enable the gdal-ecw package in order to ensure that ECW support is included in your installation.
macOS: If you are using macOS, you can download the DMG file from QGIS Downloads. This includes ECW support by default.
Linux: By default, the QGIS binaries for most Linux distributions do not include default ECW support. However, you can find discussions and solutions for adding this support in various resources for guidance.
For Ubuntu, for example, you can check out the following resources:
Please get in touch with the US User group. They are looking into these topics. More info and contact details: https://www.qgis-us.org
Yes, compiling QGIS from source is possible whatever OS you use (Windows, macOS, Linux). Please read Building QGIS from source
If you need to cite QGIS in your work or for an assignment, please use the citation style that would be most helpful:
Cite the QGIS project in general
QGIS.org, %%Y. QGIS Geographic Information System. QGIS Association. http://www.qgis.org
Cite the QGIS Developers Manual
QGIS.org, %%Y. QGIS 3.34. Geographic Information System Developers Manual. QGIS Association. Electronic document: https://docs.qgis.org/3.34/en/docs/developers_guide/index.html
Cite the QGIS Installation Guide
QGIS.org, %%Y. QGIS 3.34. Geographic Information System Installation Guide. QGIS Association. Electronic document: https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/blob/master/INSTALL.md
Cite the QGIS User Guide
QGIS.org, %%Y. QGIS 3.34. Geographic Information System User Guide. QGIS Association. Electronic document: https://docs.qgis.org/3.34/en/docs/user_manual/index.html
Cite the QGIS Server Documentation
QGIS.org, %%Y. QGIS 3.34. Geographic Information System API Documentation. QGIS Association. Electronic document: https://docs.qgis.org/3.34/en/docs/server_manual/index.html
Cite the QGIS API Documentation
QGIS.org, %%Y. QGIS 3.34. Geographic Information System API Documentation. QGIS Association. Electronic document: /pyqgis/3.34/index.html
Preferred format: BibTeX
Example BibTeX entry:
@Manual{QGIS_software,
title = {QGIS Geographic Information System},
author = {{QGIS Development Team}},
organization = {QGIS Association},
year = {%%Y},
url = {https://www.qgis.org},
}
There is no requirement to mention QGIS for maps produced with it. It is of course really welcome if you would like to add a note saying that the map was produced with QGIS. “Made with QGIS” or “Map created using the Free and Open Source QGIS” are good examples of such a note.
Do not say ©QGIS as QGIS does not hold copyrights on your work.