POI editing

First off, welcome to the site.

Depending on what you need, the easiest file format to edit would be the CSV format using a spreadsheet program. You can then use some of the built-in tools such as search and replace along with sorts to group similar stops together. As the file you are editing is a combined file, it's not going to be super easy, but definitely quite doable.

If you sort on the POI Name, you would get all one brand together and that makes it easier to check your progress. Use search and replace to delete the text you want from the entries after highlighting or selecting them. But then we don't know how proficient you are with spreadsheet programs.

EPE is a very powerful program and really quite easy to use until you start delving into a lot of the features. EPE has the ability to disassemble a GPX format file putting all the fields into separate columns, but you need to have a little experience with the GPX format and how the elements are assigned. There is a FAQ on setting the various options in EPE that will save a lot of trial and error. You can look at a GPX using Notepad or another text editor to see what elements were defined by the person posting the original file. Once you know which elements are used, you can then tell EPE to load the GPX and save as an Excel format spreadsheet with each field in its own column.

Good luck and if we knew exactly what you wanted to accomplish we could give much more explicit instructions.

Hi Cecil,

If you have issues with EPE, it may be missing some library files. I suggest to try using the Installer v4.70. If you get an installation error, just click "Ignore" and the installation will complete successfully anyways.

Do not hesitate to poste the exact error message. Me or someone else will help you with it. Once EPE is installed correctly, you won't have any more problem in the future.

Best regards,

Turbo

Hi Cecil,

Let us know a little more about what you would like to replace, say, PILOT TRAVEL CENTER with and we should be able to offer some tips and techniques.

A .gpx file is a specially formatted text file, so notepad, or wordpad work well without adding or altering any fields with Microsoft formatting stuff. Excel may change numeric values without you wanting to (changing zip codes starting with zero, for example to 4 digit numerals). MS Word may place a small amount of code at the beginning of the file. Simple is sometimes the best way.

Let us know what exactly you are trying to accomplish. Someone here has been there and can guide you through the process.

Hello to all, and I appreciate the help offered here, but more so, I like the fact you don't reply to posts asking for help in a way that hurts feelings. There are SOME sites that do that. I got the Extra POI Editor to download on the PC at home. It is running WinXP and works fine. (as far as I have learned to use it yet). I download it on my laptop which uses Win7. I have the forewarned about problems and will work on getting that fixed so I can use it on the road. It is slow and labor intensive but I am making progress using it on the home pc.
I am shortening the names of some Travel Plazas to take up less screen on my Garmin c330 gps. ie.Pilot Tavel Center to just Pilot. Travel Centers of America to just TA. I see on EPE where notes can be made and remarks made...that is awesome! TurboCCC...this is a fine program!
I thank each one that has offered help, and maybe some day I can contribute to the fine POI's listed on this site.

Cecil

We are glad to help here. In fact, I suspect everybody to race to be the first to answer the questions... LOL!

Since you have demonstrated that you are willing to attempt things, I suspect that you will be contributing before too long.

Thanks for all the kind words. It is a real help to know that the people on this forum are helpful, courteous, kind, etc. It won't be long before you are in the thick of things like we all are. This forum will grow on you.

Service with a smile! We're a pretty friendly bunch here, one of the better forums I frequent.

He has done some amazing work, and gives it away to us...definitely one of the "good guys" here!

Hi again all and thanks for the offers of help. Is there a way to replace all entries within certain parameters with another entry? example: I wish to replace "Travel Center" with a blank. This would be less clutter to look at on gps. I have tried the search feature, but found no way to replace the found phrase. Thanks again to all!

I set up my M-Column CSV fields this way:
Col 1: POI Name
Col 2: Address
Col 3: City
Col 4: State
Col 5: Post Code
Col 6: Description
Col 7: Lat
Col 8: Lon
Col 9: Phone
Col 10: Symbol
Col 11: Display
Col 12: Proximity
Col 13: Comment

You can rearrange these any way you want, but I haven't found any POI on this site which uses more than these fields.

Load the GPX into EPE, then Save As either an XLS or XLSX and do your editing with Excel. When you are done editing, load the file back into EPE and then save as a GPX to preserve all the fields or as a CSV to save the default 4 columns of LON, LAT, POI Name, Desc (address,city,state,post code,phone).

@wcsykes, I am interested in which screens you are attempting to save space on, and why.

Have you tried using Wordpad to do a Replace All from
"Pilot Travel Center" to "Pilot"? Wordpad does not care if the file is .csv or .gpx.

If you were to open up the POI in Excel, hitting CTRL-F will open up the Find/Replace option. Type in "Travel Center" in the Replace box, and then leave the Replace with blank and this will update all of the records.

Or, you can use CTRL-H.
Further, you can set your scope to find/replace only one column or a few of them, instead of whole spreadsheet.

Whew.....I have taken the Travel Centers I use, and made them a bit more easy for me to use. I had to change each one individually, but it was worth the effort to me. I edited down the info to company name, city, state and exit numbers. Some of the downloads were giving me more info than I needed. I have the same info still, I just left the minor stuff lower. If I ever learn to use EPE I am sure it will be easier. I DID use EPE for the editing I did.

I want to thank each of you good folks for your help and encouragement in my endeavor.

Now........for my next project. hmmmmmmmmmm

Something small and personal, until you get up to speed. My first POI file was my credit union. 23 locations at the time. Hardly any updates, and you get a feel for (more like an addiction to) the POI maintaining... Don't say you weren't warned...

*chuckles*...I must have missed that memo about starting off small.

.

I have a lot of CSV files but Garmin POI loader doesn't like them. Does CSV files work on Garmin or do I have to replace them with GPX files. If so, can I do a cut and replace on excel?

Then there is something wrong in the files. POIoader versions past 2.6.0 got a lot more picky about how the file was written and saved. You probably have extra characters in a column or more than 4 columns.

Where did you get the files from? Did you get them from here? If so what are they and we can take a look.

If you post a link to a file you have issues with, we could have a look and tell you exactly what the problem is.

If I were to make a listing of my Credit Union locations....are the gps numbers usually on their website, or you find them somewhere else?

Thanks, again.

You most likely will need to use a geocoder to convert street addresses into GPS coordinates. There are several available, the most commonly used is Google's. For just a few locations you can use http://www.itouchmap.com/latlong.html where you enter the addresses one at a time and the program displays the location along with the derived coordinates. Most geocoders aren't real accurate and it is always best to check a location to see if it looks close. For larger projects I normally use Google through the interface in Extra_POI_Editor. It will attempt to code to the address and will produce an error listing of those locations that did not return a street address location.

I have seen both. Usually you have to dig into the HTML code on the web pages to get the coordinates. I have never seen them placed on the page for you to use. If the web page shows you a map, there's usually coordinates somewhere behind the scenes. The trick is how to parse them out.