Help - I have the data, but I cannot make the CSV or GPX?

CSV format allows for POI's to have the same name, so if that's a possibility, I'd go with that. It's also an easier format to manipulate with Excel and/or Notepad.

For Excel, just put Longitude in column 1, Latitude in column 2, Name in column 3, and Description in column 4. Column 3 and 4 can support line breaks, but there's plenty of info around here about that.

I even have a free format converter if that can help.

As to alphabetizing, no, the GPS will almost always show POI's in order of nearest to farthest, so it doesn't matter how the file is sorted.

David

If you have all the information including the coordinates you have done the hard part.
1.If not building any alerts into file csv will be good and the easiest to do.
2.On the excel file go to file at top and click on save as put in file name save as type csv(comma delimited)on the pull down menu.Then click on save.
3.POI'S will show by proximate.

When I "save as" CSV - I get a message say it's not compatable.

Can I e-mail someone the excel file and see if it works for you?

Thanks

Doesn't the message just say that certain formatting may be lost if you save it as a CSV? And doesn't it offer you the chance to go ahead anyway? If so, go ahead and save.

Yes, I've done that.
But when I try to use the Garmin POI uploader,it tells me the file "St Louis Golf Courses.csv" is invalid.

Well I tried to send you my email address to let me look at it, but you don't have that option turned on in your profile.

This is me talking:
I find it eminently easier to build a .txt file in Notepad for the POI rather than to use Excel. The format is:
longitude(comma)latitude(comma)(open quote)name(close quote)(comma)(open quote)address(new line)phone number(new line)any other comment(s)(close quote)
That's it. That's a legal POI entry. Here's one of my examples:

-81.292747,41.714719,"Mentor","9620 Diamond Centre Dr
Mentor OH 44060
440-639-8545"

The entry above when you see it in your GPSr is nicely formatted. "Mentor" is in large letters on the top line of the GPSr display with the rest of the lines in smaller print and with new lines after the "Dr" and after the "44060." Put as many entries as you want in the Notepad file, name it and save it in some folder where you can find it. It'll be saved as a .txt file. You've just done the hard part. Now comes the easy part.
To change the .txt file to a .csv file, just rename it. For instance, change Gander_Mtn_Mentor.txt to
Gander_Mtn_Mentor.csv. Viola! It's now an Excel file.
If I were you, I'd invest the $6 (I think) to get the POI Verifier program to run against the .csv file to make sure things are syntactically correct. Then use the free Garmin POI loader program to load the file into your GPSr and you're ready to go. It really isn't rocket science and is actually a lot of fun. The hardest part, at least for me, is satisfying myself that I have the correct latitude and longitude values. Everything after that is gravy.

Phil said it all. Whether you use notepad and put in the commas and quotes, or use a spreadsheet program like Excel to do it for you, you just have to make sure every entry is correct. I've never used POI Verifier but I hear good things about it.

If you haven't gotten it figured out, you can send it to me. But try a few things.

First make sure that your data format is correct inside the file.

http://www.poi-factory.com/garmin-csv-file-format

longitude,latitude,name,comment
-78.12345,40.98765,"ACME Shoe Store","123 Main Street Anytown, PA 10555 Phone: 555-829-8293"

Also, be sure that you don't have more than one worksheet in your file in Excel. Or use Notepad for simplicity when you are saving the file as a CSV.

And the answer to your question 3 in your OP is "No". The unit will sort any POI list in accordance with proximity to your current location. But you can always search for a POI by spelling the name.

Thank you guys so much. You again show what a great community this is.

I guess I fell victim to a noobie mistake.

I had been doing it correctly all along. I had been using http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/geocoder/
After a few hours of work, I finally figured out that they give the results in latitude,longitude - not longitude,latitude.
I switched the columns and it worked first time.

I will do some testing for accuracy before I post it.

You can do what you want to - look up the golf course by name. When you pick the golf course POI list in Extras, touch SPELL and it will take you to the keyboard. Start spelling the golf course name and eventually a list will come up. Although it looks for the letter/number string match anywhere in the names, it should show the one you want (if it is spelled correctly) - at least that is the way it works with my nuvi 200W.

Glad you got it figured out.Did you use the excel to save as csv file?I have also used notepad to do the same thing but like the excel to csv.

I used excel.
I like that I can edit individual columns.
Had I been using notepad when I discovered the lat/long problem I would have had a lot of cutting and pasting to do.

With excel, I just moved the columns.

Hi Phil,

I want to thank you for your post. You've shown me, in detail, how to create a .csv POI file. I've been trying to do this for quite a while, without any success. Well, I'm here to testify, thanks to your detailed instructions, I've just created my own POI.csv file and uploaded to my Nüvi 670...successfully!!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Best regards.

Tailspin

Nüvi 670
Mac User

Actually if you had made the file with Notepad and then discovered the lat/long column error, just open the csv file in Excel and switch the columns. Your csv file can be opened in either. For some editing I find Notepad easier - maybe just my lack of Excel skills.

POI Verifier also has the capability of switching the long-lat info in a csv POI file along with the ability to find data format errors such as missing quotes, commas etc.

You can open CSV files in Excel and it will put the entries into columns again for you.

I use all kinds of text editor and Excel to do it, whichever on hands, never have any problem. But I still prefer Excel, it is easier to view or even sort on different columns. Be sure to save as csv file.

I tried to download POI Verifier, but I kept getting an error message when I try to use the Paypal link.

Send an e-mail to Retired Technician who wrote POI Verifier -
RT is extremely helpful !

Hi Phil,

Just a quick note about creating .csv files on the Mac. I was able to create .csv files (per your instructions) using either Microsoft Word or AppleWorks 6. So far I haven't been able to accomplish the task using OpenOffice (for the Mac), TexEdit or Tex-Edit Plus.

Once again, thank you for simplifying the .csv creation process.

Best regards.

Tailspin

Nüvi 670
Mac User

What problem do you have with TextEdit and OpenOffice? I've used TextEdit successfully and I just checked to make sure OpenOffice allows you to take a spreadsheet and SaveAs a CSV, and it does. What happens?

Hi bentbiker,

I wasn't using the spreadsheet in NeoOffice, I was using the NeoOffice Word text editor. Creating it using the "spreadsheet" works just fine. Thanks for the tip...

I tried again with TexEdit and Tex-Edit Plus and was successful.

Regards.

Tailspin

Nüvi 670
Mac User

Nuvi's do NOT like "&" ampersands in the CSV/GPX files! Talk about trial and error. What I went through to find this little nugget before I found this web site. As a matter of fact, I probably found this web site while trying to find an answer for that problem!

It's not really a problem - they just need encoding as & (that being the job of your POI Creation software )

Now getting anything other than the Nüvi 3xx series to display a "£" sign - that's a problem!

That's why I LOVE this site. At least one little nugget per day! Thank you!!

It might be easier for you to just move. : 0

FYI, The name field (Third column) should be unique to identify the location. This is not required but is helpful when paging through the list. If you name them all "Golf Courses" then you need to select each one to see the desc for other information.

Use name like "White Pines", "Cog Hill Golf & CC",
or use the town as part of the name "Golf: Chicago",
"Golf: Glenview" to make page searching easier.