Creating custom POI daily list?

You have to have longitude and latitude for a Custom POI file. There's no way to make it work with addresses. You can use online geocoders to get the coordinates for a list of addresses. It's not that time consuming as you can do a whole list at one time and 10 addresses wouldn't take that long to do even manually. Be aware that depending on the area, geocoding may not produce exact results for every address. Rural addresses tend to be less accurate than urban areas.

This has worked for me:

Using Microsoft Streets and Trips: You could type your addresses into an excel file and import them in as push pins. Then save the file as an .est file from Streets and Trips. You can then import the .est file into GPS Utility and export as a gpx file and load into the Garmin.

Sounds like a lot of steps, but should work.

I have exported addresses from outlook and used the above procedure to import my contacts into my Garmin...

looks like I will be typing manually form now until I discover an easier method. I am sure some company will enventually see the amount of small time business which would like to send their database of daily dispatches for their drivers directly to all the GPS the drivers have to use. Just saves alot of time and prevents having to type in address on the road.

Presume you have a contact list on a computer. Why not set up a couple of fields in it for long and lat taken out of S&T. When your call list for the day is being composed the selected calls could be processed into a POI file or contactx added to a master POI Contact File you could select from. Shouldn't be that difficult for someone with some Excel skills and a nerdy outlook. Could even be fun

As a new user I can see that posting a question not answered in FAQ's will get me some expert assistance. I'm impressed with the time folks take to help each other out. The EXCEL lists are lengthy and I want to narrow some of them down by State or region. Some are sub-divided by State already, others aren't. Is there a specific protocol for setting up a POI file and where do I go to find that? If I contribute, I want to make it VERY user friendly.

Rather than type each one into the gps one at a time you can create a poi file. You won't even have to look up the lat/lon. All you need would be the client name and address.

But....

you'll need a program to help you out. Phil Hornby's program can do that.

Here's how I did it. In notepad type the following

0,0,client name,client address

using the 0 for the lon and lat and your clients name and address. Type them all in this way. Following the proper csv format. Save the file as a csv file. Then open GeePeeEx Editor and open the file. Then for each one, select "geocode" and the program will find the lat/lon, you can view it on a map that is within the program and move the location to fine tune the location, edit name, address, add phone number, make notes etc.
Do that for each one and in no time you have a poi file.

You can do this each day if you need to, using the merge function with each new csv file you can add to the previous one thereby compiling one big client list, and you won't have to do it again.

You don't even need excel and if the name/address is on computer you can copy/paste into notepad....then you only have to type the 0 and , ☺

You could, of course, just type the name, address, phone number etc directly into GeePeeEx Editor!

There's also the Batch GeoCode function, that will do the whole list at once.

I tried Microsoft MapPoint 2006 to achieve the same. I imported an Excel file, but I could not find a way to export it so that gpsbabel could read it. The only understandable format appeared to be Pocket Streets. I converted that to a KML file and compared the points in Google Earth. Unfortunately they were way off the correct addresses.
Any other conversion software out there that could work?

Thanks!

Of course, the batch mode! Worked great with my test file. I like the ability to fine tune the location then update from the map. Brilliant work Phil.

Let see if i can explain how i do this,
1. enter all of them on the gps, save them to you favorites.
2. Insert your sd card in the puter if you can if not put in in your garmin.
3. Hook up the Garmin to your computer,open up your explorer, (right click on the start bar, open with explore) navigate to your garmin,poi,current.(they should be there)
4. open up the poi loader and navigate to the garmin folder above, they should come up.
5. Then you should be able to send them to your card.
you can also edit them on the gps screen by changeing phone numbers, address etc right on the gps screen.
Try it, i am writing this from memory, i may have to get "BETTY" and do a step by step if this dont work for you .