Just a question

I use Extra POI edtior to sort my Offbeat in many differnt ways, One way I need is to break it by state and extract each state into a file, That may be what you could use. there are many other ways too, by state, location, alpha, etc..

But remember, it must be in gpx for that to work corrrect. You could suck in the CSV file and then using EPE to do a reverse lookup so it will fill in your City, State, and Zip for you..

just a idea...

The gps shows the closest poi to where you are. And the files are really not that big if you use them complete.

It seems to me to be a lot of work, and then when a new update comes out for a file, you have to do it all again.

I use Microsoft Streets & Trips if your dealing with GPX files. It's pretty simple to load the GPX file into S&T and then use the mouse to outline the area on the map you want to keep. Then just right click inside the box you've created and select:

Delete Visible Pushpins Outside the Area

Pushpins are what S&T called the various POI locations. Anyway once you've delected all the POIs outside the area of your box you just "save" or "save as" the file and now you have a gpx file with those POIs in it that are located in the area your interested in.

We travel mostly on the west coast and I have done this with all my POI files so they now only list places in WA, OR, CA, and AZ as well as BC Canada.

I sometimes need to take an extra step if the orginal POI file is in CSV format and that is to load it into EPE and save it as a GPX file before loading it into S&T.

You do need to use S&T version 2010 or higher. The latest version is 2013 and it's $19 on Amazon.

I split Walmart and Sam's file, but for a different reason. I have nearly 250,000 custom poi locations, using 37mb of memory. At least 5mb of that is consumed by various TourGuide files.

Stick a 16-32 GB SD card in and never worry about file size... I have Days (not hours) of music, books, stand-up comedy, pictures and etc.. never a problem for me.

I've split up an existing POI file, and also deleted some of the points within a POI file,using the CSV file like it was an Excel spread sheet. For example, I've taken the Rest Area file and broken it into North, South, East, & West files so that I can give each a different name and a different alert message.

Start with the CSV file and make a copy. Then use Data Sort or Search on one or more fields to group the POI points so that you can easily delete them (either individually or as a group). Then save that edited file with the name and load that file into the GPS. The save process with ask you if you want to save the updated Excel file as a CSV file and answer yes.

Since most of the POI points have an address, use the State to find POI points that you want to delete. It sounds like a lot of work, but with a little imagination in the sort of search routine, it is not over powering.

Does this help answer your question?

I've split up an existing POI file, and also deleted some of the points within a POI file,using the CSV file like it was an Excel spread sheet. For example, I've taken the Rest Area file and broken it into North, South, East, & West files so that I can give each a different name and a different alert message.

Start with the CSV file and make a copy. Then use Data Sort or Search on one or more fields to group the POI points so that you can easily delete them (either individually or as a group). Then save that edited file with the name and load that file into the GPS. The save process with ask you if you want to save the updated Excel file as a CSV file and answer yes.

Since most of the POI points have an address, use the State to find POI points that you want to delete. It sounds like a lot of work, but with a little imagination in the sort of search routine, it is not over powering.

Does this help answer your question?

Thanks I'll give it a try but first I'll have to get my daughter to help me with MS Excel to do the CSV files. I usually download in GPX format and use POI Editor.

Once you've mastered that, you might try building your own POI file. Just take an existing POI file, probably a smaller one, and delete all the lines in the file except the first one. You are going to use that line as a guide for your own entries. Then on the next lines start adding your own information.

After you get everything entered, go in and delete the first line (from the old file) and then do a SAVE with your new file name. Then if you want to add more POI points to your file just open the file up in EXCEL, add some new lines with your data, and save it again. Remember to add the new file to your GPS using the POI Loader program.

Also, just to give you some more ideas, you can create your own alert message (see the forum for the program - I can't remember what it is called) by saving the alert message with the exact same name as the POI file. For example, I broke the combined Rest Area file into East, West, etc etc and then have my own alert message that says "Rest Area Ahead East Bound". That way, I can easily tell if the rest area is on my side of the expressway.

Once you get comfortable creating your own POI files, you can do a lot of things and add a lot of information to the "Remarks" section of a POI point.

Go ahead, try it.

Once you've mastered that, you might try building your own POI file. Just take an existing POI file, probably a smaller one, and delete all the lines in the file except the first one. You are going to use that line as a guide for your own entries. Then on the next lines start adding your own information.

After you get everything entered, go in and delete the first line (from the old file) and then do a SAVE with your new file name. Then if you want to add more POI points to your file just open the file up in EXCEL, add some new lines with your data, and save it again. Remember to add the new file to your GPS using the POI Loader program.

Also, just to give you some more ideas, you can create your own alert message (see the forum for the program - I can't remember what it is called) by saving the alert message with the exact same name as the POI file. For example, I broke the combined Rest Area file into East, West, etc etc and then have my own alert message that says "Rest Area Ahead East Bound". That way, I can easily tell if the rest area is on my side of the expressway.

Once you get comfortable creating your own POI files, you can do a lot of things and add a lot of information to the "Remarks" section of a POI point.

Go ahead, try it.

Extra POI Editor. If so, you can use it to easily break down a CSV (or GPX) so you can sort by state. EPE will also do that for you as well, then you could spit the file out as a CSV and delete the lines for the states you don't want.

I don't understand the part about the extra step with CSV files. I import them all the time with S&T 2011.