Garmin's Custom POI’s Demystified

Could you try the "|" (pipe) character on the 750 for me please. (In the description field...it's interpreted as newline on some units)

to insert line breaks i use html hard returns <br>:

-80.002335,40.129430,"Big Jim, Metal Cowboy","Best Western Garden Inn<br>101 Gosai Drive (off Wilson Rd)<br>Bentleyville, PA"

displays in full as (nuvi 350):

Big Jim, Metal
Cowboy
Best Western Garden Inn
101 Gosai Drive (off Wilson Rd)
Bentleyville, PA

For field 3 it displayed as a pipe character in both the single line and full display. For field 4 it acted the same as a line break.

.

I have done the same tests as you. Nice job. I have a 680 and I believe it probably works just like yours. I don't know about other units. I have found that you can display 30 characters for the first line (col C) and then the second line (col D) can contain only 5 lines, not 6. Look at my BofA col D to see how I do it, I don't use "'s or br's. For POI's I use alot, I change col D to my way because I do not like wrapping or seeing the br in my text.
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/7246

Looks like the 6xx and 7xx are very close. The 7xx has room for 2 lines in field C and they both display as a larger font. If you don't have any data for the second line it displays as a blank line. Because of the line break in field C of my tests the quotes are required. Also 6 lines in field D are displayed. I expected my Test 2 to fail because it had 7 lines but the last line was just ignored.

FYI I used Excel to develop my tests and I also checked the file with another editor just to be sure.

Another tip: I'm developing another set of POI's that start with a set of raw data that needs manipulation. As it turns out Excel displays this data in multiple columns. In the Excel formula I used for example:

=E7&" "&E8 to concatenate the text from cell E7 with a blank and the text from cell E8

=F9&CHAR(10)&F10 to place a line break between the two cells data for say the CSV field D. You must enable Word Wrap in the receiving cell for this to work.

I was a little rusty on the Word Wrap business so thought I'd pass it along.

Recently I found that all of the fields can be scrolled on the 750. Pressing the More button displays the text in a more compact font (and without the Go button) and the up and down arrow keys appear allowing you to scroll the data.

I added several paragraphs of data to field 4 and it all displayed/scrolled very nicely. This would allow a much expanded description of a way point.

I found that if you take the example:

-117.22316,32.7257,Holiday Inn San Diego Located by the Water,"4875 N Harbor Drive, San Diego, CA, 92106"

and break it up with hard returns:

-117.22316,32.7257,"Holiday Inn San Diego","4875 N Harbor Drive
San Diego, CA
92106"

This display very nicely. It is a little hard to read but works fine. I saw this described very well somewhere on this website but can't find it right now.

http://www.creativyst.com/Doc/Articles/CSV/CSV01.htm

or

http://www.poi-factory.com/garmin-csv-file-format

are two possibles, there have been a number of good explanations recently

I agree and that is essentially my Test 2.

It is hard to read with a text editor as well as displaying on these boards. The use of Excel makes it very easy to understand, however. The 4 fields are in separate cells and the "s are hidden and automatically added when the file is saved. But you have to have Excel or someother spread sheet.

Yes the CSV format informtion is all over the place and therein lies the problem. Why can't/won't Garmin document it all in one place?

Did you know that you can add comment lines to a CSV file? I didn't and neither did Garmin support. Later I found it on their web site.

Wouldn't it be nice/useful to have some comments on the CSV POI's on these boards? Maybe like some general information about the POI's? This should be compatible with all models since the POI Loader would ignore those lines.

Did you know that you can add hundreds of words to fields 3 and 4 at least for the 7xx? I have a new test where I've added several paragraphs and all of this data is easy to scroll. Probably not compatible with all models and extensive use of text might have adverse effects on the GPSs. But wouldn't you like to know what you can/can not do?

Shame on Garmin for not providing all of this information in one place.

See the post entitled "More button" in this thread :-

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/7571

See if you can get that to work on the Nüvi 7xx (it will probably need more than 150 spaces, with it being w-i-d-e-s-c-r-e-e-n.)

(Don't forget the leading ".")