New entries appear in red text

The single biggest downside of using open source Word and Excel is the fonts. If the text is red, that is a font issue.

I installed Microsoft Word 2010 and Excel 2010 (perpetual license) on my Windows 10 PC and it runs fine. I have the original install DVDs, and Windows Update provided every update they had.

I have no problem with fonts at all because Microsoft Word and Excel supplied the fonts.

I use Notepad for POI files, but I don't have a high volume of those.

Whoops, sorry for the length. This reply grew and grew as I looked more into your current file.

I'm also a fan of using Windows Notepad for creating and maintaining csv files. My Wisconsin State Natural Areas contains 777 lines and was entirely made with Notepad, saving it as a csv file rather than a txt file which requires nothing more than renaming the file. I do see that you graciously inherited the file, one of the orphan files here at the Factory, and we thank you for that. I realize that in keeping the original lines from the past author, they may vary in content and appearance from the additions you create.

What happens, Lost Anyway, if you open the file with Notepad and see what's there, correct anything looking odd, then saving the file with Notepad to see if the red goes away when used in a GPS? Your current Drury file only contains 137 lines and can quickly be scanned for issues.

Two last thoughts. The current Drury file offered here at the Factory has a filename with the digit 3 in the filename. This is going to require most Garmin users of the file to rename it without the digit, and if not doing so, will end up with a speed alert file and no green "Go" button to begin navigation to the location.

The other thing I note looking at the current Drury Inn file here at the Factory is that some lines contain no quotes leaving the POI location title for each line very long, and if in that long string of characters in the title, there is one or more commas, it divides the text into a separate title and comment field and many Garmin users won't see the comment field without scrolling. For example, the current line:

-88.967101,37.743228,Drury Inn Marion - 2706 W DeYoung St; Marion,IL 62959>618-997-9600

would have long/lat fields, a long title ending with the second Marion, then a comment field of IL 62959>618-997-9600. Just use a comma to separate Long/lat/name/comments and preferably adding quotes ("") to the comments which allow extra commas to be considered text.

Some lines with extra commas may end up with more than four fields and I'm not enough of a Garmin csv person to know how a fifth or later field will be handled by a GPS.

On the other hand, some lines of the current csv file have quotes, such as:

-88.671627,32.369792,"Drury Inn & Suites Meridian - 112 US Hwy 80, Meridian",MS 39301>601-483-5570

and I think the title will appear as Drury Inn & Suites Meridian - 112 US Hwy 80, Meridian, then a comment field of MS 39301>601-483-5570.

In the files I maintain, all are created like the following line with four fields separated by commas:

-89.88782,43.84766,Adams - Quincy Bluff And Wetlands -Ember Ave,"From parking area, walk east to top of bluff, then north along ridge. Other trails possible"

where I consistently have longitude and latitude fields, a title field (no quotes and therefore no commas allowed) of Adams - Quincy Bluff And Wetlands -Ember Ave, then a comment field (with quotes so commas here will not create new fields) of From parking area, walk east to top of bluff, then north along ridge. Other trails possible.

Good luck and have fun

As always, thank you dobs108 and CraigW for your thoughtful replies.

The red text issue proved to be a red herring that didn't need intervention. Sorry. The file was fine. If I open an uploaded custom POI and hit the Search icon and then type a keyword in the title of a destination, the text of the search result (and what I see if I hit the Info button there) appears in red on my Garmin Drive 50.

The reason I thought it was occurring only in new entries is I was specifically searching for my two new entries. When I scroll down the list and open an entry in the POI using just the Info key without the Search window, the text appears in black. I wasn't picking up on that distinction until I looked into CraigW's suggestion about "Marion," an old entry, searched for it, and like the new entries, it too was in red. So each POI entry displays red text on my GPS if I specifically search for it, black text if I don't.

I appreciate the suggestions for improving the POI file generally. If you're up for it, let's strategize on those some more.

I already caught and fixed the bonehead error on the version number 3 in the filename. I'm very sorry about that, because I know that doesn't work for navigation. The next upload will remove that.

I'd also already shortened every property name to its essence, though maybe not to the extent CraigW would prefer. Part of the issue here is that in some urban areas Drury has a cluster of multiple properties. They do change the name to make them distinct.

But if one has a reservation for a Drury Inn in, say, St. Louis, a POI user could easily end up at the wrong one if not careful to match property name and street address. (In a few cases, they have two hotels a block or two apart, such as a Pear Tree with a more expensive Drury.)

Drury is not unique in this issue. I was checking into a Comfort Suites a month ago, and there was a front-desk check-in argument with an angry guest ahead of me who'd waited in line at least 10 minutes due to Covid short-staffing. "I have a reservation here." "I'm sorry, but you don't." "Yes I do!" They had signs on the front door and at the front desk about the other nearby Comfort Suites, and it still was a source of conflict. (Phone app pickup order to a McDonald's or Starbucks, anybody??)

Drury has four generic names they use in their chain: Drury Inn and Suites, Drury Plaza Hotel, Drury Hotel, and Pear Tree Inn. Long hotel names scroll offscreen, as CraigW pointed out. I decided that "Drury" and "Pear Tree" were the only necessary data elements at the start of each entry, so I truncated the beginning of each entry to that. But I also felt the city name should be spelled out as Drury uses them in each hotel name with the street address included, because those distinguish between similarly-named and -located properties.

On my GPS all this data appears on the info screen, with an additional line for city (the mailing address city, which can be different than the city name used in the hotel title) and full state name (because not everyone knows the two-letter abbreviations for states away from home). It looks right to me on my GPS, but it may get cut off on some other Garmin models. What does scroll off to a second screen in much smaller print on mine is the two-letter state abbreviation, zip code, and phone number.

I've uploaded the Drury POI version I have now. If anyone has general suggestions for helping people get where they're going or for the look and GUI, and especially if you load it on a GPS and it doesn't display what you would want to see or look its best, I'm open to giving it another shot.

it just seems to me that people make this whole process much harder than it needs to be.
Creating and maintaining a TXT or CSV file is MUCH more difficult, EXTREMELY prone to error and leads to very inconsistent POI files than using a spreadsheet. I can show that to you in almost every POI file I use.
A GPS can handle 4 fields; Lat, Lon, Name, Comments.
Each represented by one column of a spreadsheet.
Open almost any POI CSV file in a spreadsheet and see if EVERY row has only 4 columns. Probably not.
When saving a spreadsheet as a CSV, each column is separated by a comma. If the column contains multiple words, the whole column entry is contained in quotes.
Try finding an erroneous comma in a file opened in Notepad.
Sorting a spreadsheet by columns QUICKLY located rows with more than 4 columns. Extra commas. If the comment field contains phone numbers, it is immediately obvious when a phone number is in column 5, 6, 7.... that there is a problem.

I have a specific desire as to how I want the info displayed to me. It would be so simple if all POI files were only 4 columns, but first I need to fix the file to get it into 4 columns and every row consistent, then I separate and rearrange the data. I am sure a lot of people do that and end up losing data because of the file inconsistencies.

I tried to give people corrected consistent files (4 columns) but instead of welcoming the help, it is like I was trying to take over their little empire. Sorry.

I would be very happy to show anyone how simple it is. I don't want to do your job, but I am sure I can make it a lot easier for you.

You can PM me if you are interested.

Ruggb, I both agree and disagree with your technique for creating POI entries.

First and foremost, I would suggest that there are far more Factoryites that are totally unfamiliar with Excel than you and me. For them, using Excel is a non-starter.

Like others, I use Notepad to create or change POI records, but my technique ensures that there are no extraneous quotes to get in the way. As the final steps after I'm done with all entries, I copy that particular file to create a second file with type .csv. Then using the .csv file, I use your technique to make sure there are no more than four fields in any record.

Here's an example of how I format every single record in every one of my files:

-81.006280,41.740424,Debonne Vineyards,7840 Doty Rd•Madison OH 44057•440-466-3485

In my case, where there might be a logical comma I put in the "•" character which maintains the record's readability. Should I have to revisit an entry, I find that using Notepad far easier and intuitive to use than Excel. In my opinion.

Phil

Hi Phil,
I'm pretty new to POI files and use Excel but am finding some limitations and want to start using notepad. Where does one find the • Character? I like the idea of using something for ease of reading but used tilde (~) and found it causes a lot of problems. Do you have an ascii symbol or is it a character in some font or something else?
Steve

In order for this to work you will need a numerical keypad located on the right side of the keyboard. External keypads can be found at Amazon and other sellers if you do not have one on your keyboard. Using the numbers above QWERTY will not work.

Place the cursor where you want the Bullet to appear. While holding the "ALT" key down, enter "0149" (without the quotes) using the numeric keypad. A • should appear when you release the "ALT" key

See: https://www.ascii-code.com/

Note that only 4 numbers will work. Example: The exclamation point (!) is ASCII 33 and must be entering 0033 using the numeric keypad.

Edit:
You can also use in Excel "Insert + Symbol" and select the desired symbol in the chart that appears and then select Insert.

Yes indeed. I use that for a few characters that I use fairly often. [I like using the em dash—and for the acute letter é, mostly to type café.] But occasionally, it's nice to add a © ° ™ etc., and for all of these on a PC, I keep the "Character Map" pinned to my Start Menu. But then I also like the POI Factory's Smileys

If you don't have access to a number pad you can use this:
1. Open Character Map by clicking the Start button, clicking All Programs, clicking Accessories, clicking System Tools, and then clicking Character Map.
2. In the Font list, type or select the font you want to use.
3. Click the special character you want to insert into the document.
4. Click Select, and then click Copy.
5. Open your document and position the cursor where you want the special character to appear.
6. On the Edit menu, click Paste.

Other entries later in this post describe other ways to find that symbol. Here's my technique (requires MS Word):

In Word open any (blank) document. Go to the Insert Tab. On the far right you'll find "Symbol." Click that and find whatever separator you like. Select it and it'll go onto your document. Then copy it from there.

Or you can copy it from here (The formatting ain't so good):

⅓ (one third) ¼ (one quarter) ½ (one half)
¾ (three fourths)

⅔ (two thirds) ⅕ (one fifth) ⅖ (two fifths) ⅗ (three fifths)

⅘ (four fifths) ⅙ (one sixth) ⅚ (five sixths) ⅛ (one eighths)

⅜ (three eighths) ⅝ (five eighths) ⅞ (seven eighths)

π (Pi) ÷ (Division) × (multiplication) ¢ (Cent sign)

£ (Pound sign) © (Copyright) ° (Degree)
± (Plus-minus sign)

é (Small e with acute) • (Bullet) ℅ (Care of sign)

№ (Number sign) ● (Black circle) ◦ (White bullet) ¬ (Not sign)

‼ (Double exclamation mark) ™ ( Trade mark) ~ (tilde)

® (Registered sign) ℠ (Service mark) ↑ (Up arrow) ↓ (Down arrow)

→ (Right arrow) ← (left Arrow) ∙ (Middle dot)
√ (Square root)

∞ (Infinity) ≈ (Almost equal to) ≠ (Not equal to) ≤ (Less than or equal to)

≥ (Greater than or equal to) € (Euro sign) µ (micro sign)

| (Vertical line) … (Ellipses)

Phil

Without bothering to collect any actual facts I jump to the conclusion that you are talking about a Windoz specific method. I couldn't make your instructions work for the Ubuntu text editor or Libre Office Writer. Libre Office Writer or Calc "Insert Special Charactors" does indeed work.

Yeah, I had one little disclaimer in my post that referenced MS Word.

Completely off topic: If there weren't nearly 400,000 of us Factoryites, it'd be interesting to see how many of us use Windows platforms, Apple platforms, Linux platforms or some other platforms.

Phil

There are many symbols available using ALT + xxx, or ALT + xxxx. Google ALT SYMBOLS.
I find it much easier to use than the symbols function and it works for all office produce in Windows. It is also easier than opening another file to copy/paste.
I made a short list for ones I use often, and have one of the charts printed out and pasted on a piece of cardboard to reference the rest.
for example ALT 234 = Ω, or alt 236 = ∞, or alt 230 = µ. See, it even works here.