csv program newbe

You're missing commas between your coordinates. So your entries should appear as follows:

-xx.xxxxx,xx.xxxxx,Name,"Address and added info"

If that does not fix the issue, you may want to try using a spreadsheet program to work on your files.

The FAQ at the Rand McNally site says: "Any .csv format may be imported, such as those found at www.poi-factory.com or www.roadmapgps.com/poi//"

Both of those sites use Garmin format (see the help feature in POI Loader for details on the format).

Your samples do not have Garmin required commas after the longitude and after the latitude. Is that a typo in your samples or did you copy and paste lines from your csv file? I am thinking they are typos because you would not have been able to load the POIs in the form you show.

Maybe there are other typos in your samples? For example the third poi does not have a comma after the name. Is that actually the way it is in your csv file?

Also you may have to find out what character your unit uses for line breaks - that varies amongst different models.

Since your device will accept poi-factory files, our FAQ on .csv files should be helpful
http://www.poi-factory.com/garmin-csv-file-format

Using excel, I looked at the Speedway poi and it dosen't show any commas in the cordinate columns. The sample I showed were cut/paste from excel. so maybe errors. I tried no comma's. everything with comma's (except cord.) , checked spaces. Example 1 works and ex. 2 dosen't. I even copied cell example 1 into example 2 and retyped info with no luck. Because I am doing this in excel; do I need to use comma's in the cords. The speedway poi shows city, state & zip.
I only want to show city, phone and info on the second line (looking at gps). In column D (excel does everything between commas show in gps. The comma in Ex. 3 was missing and now shows phone and info. I still want the city to show. any suggestions? Thanks; Gerry

See http://www.poi-factory.com/node/25743 for excel.

See http://www.poi-factory.com/node/25752 for notepad.

I used Notepad for the bulk of the work on my Canada Rest Areas file, reserving Excel for doing cut and paste on rest area descriptions for consistency. If your file isn't too big, I would personally skip Excel and make your file using Notepad. You will have to type out everything by hand but it's honestly worth it to get the file right.

OK - you are creating a POI file for skeet/clay.

You might want to look at
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/30395
for a few more details about what Strephon_Alkhalikoi is suggesting uysing Notepad. I agree that this approach will get you started and then we can discuss other options.

Just get 5 or so locations loaded and see if you can "Go" to them. I have no idea on your Rand McNally what you need to do to make sure that "custom POIs" are active but you may need to do that (we have to on Garmins)

So, do a small file, see if you can set up to navigate to one of the locations and please report back to us.

Good Luck!

Here is what I figured out, the first info in column D is used for map info but everything else is used at the selection screen,
column d (,"1872 N Forty-One Rd,Manton, (231) 824-6378 (5 stand-sporting clays)")

1872 N forty-one Rd. is not shown on the selection screen,everything else is.

It now shows;

Action Shooting Sports
Manton, (231) 824-6378 (5 stand-sporting clays)"

I don't know if this is a Rand McNally thing or not.
My first gps.

Thanks everyone!

Thanks for the update

Your experience with the Rand McNally unit will help all of us here in building our POI. PLEASE keep us informed as you get things worked out and post what you've found.

As a further note, If you display a CSV file in Excel, it does some behind-the-scenes reformatting and does not display commas. It uses the commas to determine when a new cell is required. That's why a CSV displays LON in Column A, LAT in B and so on. The "fly" in the ointment is if quote marks (") surround an item. Then a comma will appear.

If an item is in quotes then it is a text field, so any commas it contains should be displayed in that cell. One of the annoying quirks of Excel is that if a text field does not contain a comma then Excel won't put quotes around it when you save the file, so the formatting of text fields is inconsistent, as in

-118.12345,45.54321,POI without a comma
-116.23456,44.23456,"POI, with a comma"

For those who don't have Excel, or want to try something different, then the spreadsheet component of OpenOffice.org ("OpenOffice.org Calc") is another option. It seems to handle CSV files more consistently.

Your first line has 2 commas before the Quoted Data
Your second line has 1 comma before the Quoted Data
Your third line has 0 commas before the Quoted Data
This would explain why they are parsed diffently.

If I were doing it I would have formatted it like so:
-85,9518,44.3668,Allegan County Conservation League,"Allegan, (269)673-8116 (skeet-trap)"

Commas between the coordinates a comma between the coordinate and the name then a comma and enclose everything after that with quotes. That gives me four fields. By using quotes you can use commas wherever you want in between and it doesn't make a separate field between each comma.