With just a few simple steps you can pass the KML files to shapefiles, using QGIS.
First you need to have the points, lines or area delimited by a polygon in Google Earth, and save it in kml or kmz format.
To load the polygon to QGIS the following steps are performed:
- Click Add Vector Layer from the Layer > Add Layer menu, in the pop-up window click on Explore.
- Browse the location of the file, if not displayed in the format type, select kml, kmz and open it.
- Once the polygon is loaded right click on the layer and select the Save As option.
- Then in the Format option, select ESRI shapefile. In the current window assign a name and directory for the file, in SRC the projection system is placed.
- The shapefile is automatically loaded as a new layer to the current QGIS project.
- This same procedure can be done points, lines and polygons (kml, kmz) created in Google Earth.
- The new shapefiles generated by this process can be opened with any application that supports this format.
