How can I import 100+ addresses to Garmin Mobile PC?

Hi everyone, I'am a new kid on the block. only know a little about PCs and PC software. I currently have MS Streets & Trips but I'am looking at the Garmin Mobile PC. But the problem I might have is importing multiple addresses. We are Realtors and do alot of property inspections. Does anyone know how I can import 100+ addresses at one time into Garmin Mobile PC and what format should be use? I would like to know this before I go out and buy.

Thanks

Hi gogetter,

As Marvin would say, welcome to Laptop GPS World.

The Reader's Digest answer is, Yes, there are multiple ways to get multiple addresses into Mobile PC.

I'm going to assume you might want the ability to group the addresses in categories, if not immediately then at some point in the future.

If so, you can use Garmin's POI loader (it's a free download). That will load the addresses as custom POIs (points of interest). These custom POIs can be organized into groups so you can focus on just the group you want.

The only catch with POIs is that the utility expects you to provide the location (latitude/longitude) in the data file you import from.

I have already done some export/import of data from Street&Trips into Mobile PC as custom POIs. It's a multi-step process so you need to spend a little time with it, but it works well.

There are a couple of other methods of getting addresses into Mobile PC as "Favorites" (Mobile PC's version of an address book). First of all, if you have the addresses in MS Outlook, Mobile PC will link with Outlook's contacts when you install it. This will not allow you to transfer location coordinates, if you have them, because Outlook has no place to store them. (At least I think that's the way it works ... Terry???)

Second, if you don't have Outlook or don't want to use it that way, there is a way to load them into Garmin's Mapsource utility and transfer them to Mobile PC. This will allow you to transfer the location coordinates, if you have them.

...ken...

Thanks Ken,

That's a big help. Because I really like the Garmin over MS Streets & Strips. MS Streets & Trips are okay, better than nothing, but in my opinion it's not as accurate as the Garmin at lease my Garmin nuvi 350. I was happy when I saw that Garmin software Laptops as well. Ken to save me a little time, can you remember how you transferred from MS Strrets & Trips?

Thanks again,
Charlie in Sunny South Florida!!!

The way Mobile PC works with Outlook (2002 and above) is it provides a list of your contacts under the Contacts menu item in Tools-Manage My Data. You must click on each one you want coordinates for. It will present the address(s) from the contact and you can choose the appropriate one.

Assuming the program can find the address, it will give you the opportunity to ok the one it finds (if it can't identify the address, it will ask you to go through the Find process).

Choosing Select will present you with a screen allowing modifications to how the contact is displayed. Once you choose Done it will return to the Contact list.

The geocoded information is also stored in the Outlook contact.

Terry

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Thanks tcassidy,

But this look's like a time consuming way. When I have to bring over 50 to a 100+ addresses into my Outlook Contacts it could fill it up or make it pretty big. these addresses I might not go back to for a month/s if any. Is there another way. I really thank you for your help. It amaze me the knowledge you guys have of this stuff. Some of it is like Greek to me.

Thanks,
Charlie down in Sunny South Florida

I agree, it can be quite time consuming. Especially if Mobile PC can't identify the address and you have to go through the Find process. However, it uses a dll link to Outlook so there is no slowdown or move of information until you request it. That is, the Contacts tab does not even get populated until you open it. And files are not actually moving anywhere.

Terry

If you don't already have your contacts in Outlook, I would not consider that approach. It would be quicker just to find them in Mobile PC in the first place using Tools-Manage My Data-Favourites. You could probably add 100 contacts in an hour or two.

Terry

Hi gogetter,

Now I discover that I've gone and stuck my foot in my mouth. I just realized that the messing around I was doing was with Mappoint 2009. I have not tested with Streets&Trips. When I started to compose the process, I thought I'd better test it with Streets&Trips first.

For the record, it's really easy in Mappoint. You just select the pushpin group you want and export it to Excel, then you save the Excel page as a tab delimited file. You use that file as input to the Garmin POI loader, which will create the custom POI file and load it into Mobile PC. It's really quite easy.

......But....

When I tried it with Streets&Trips I discovered that you can import a tab delimited Excel file but you can't export NUTHIN' !!!

I only have Streets&Trips 2008, so perhaps 2009 has some way to export pushpin data?

Anybody have any idea how to export the data in a pushpin group? I tried to cut and paste, but the only thing I get is the name. Can't get the address, longitude and latitude fields.

... Off to Google land, I guess... ....mumble....

...ken...

I have exhausted this forum and Google for ways to export or convert Streets&Trips pushpin data into something else but absolutely nothing works for Streets&Trips 2008 .est files.

But all is not lost. Mappoint has no problem exporting pushpin data to an Excel spreadsheet. So, for a one-time conversion you have the option of downloading the 60-day free trial version of Mappoint 2009.

I know that's a nuisance, but it should still be lots less work than having to do it manually. All you have to do is open your existing Streets&Trips file in Mappoint and then use the Data menu to export to Excel. Just be sure you make a backup copy of your Streets&Trips files somewhere safe, first. Please!!

Sorry about that. I thought it would be so much simpler. I hadn't counted on Streets&Trips being such a black hole to get stuff back out of. It's Microsoft ... I shoulda known better.

...ken...

Hi Ken,

I appreciate all the trouble you and tcassidy has gone thru to make this work. I like the Forum already, there's some great people on here not to mention Master minds. I'm gone to try these ways and see how I come out and let you'all know the results.

Thanks again,

While Streets & Trips cannot export like MapPoint can, S&T users use various 3rd party solutions to do just that. Check out GPS Babel, and others, listed here: http://www.laptopgpsworld.com/194-list-free-software-helpful-microsoft-streets-trips-users

thanks, I will try that also. It'll be good to go thru MS Streets & Trips.

Sorry to poke a hole in that balloon, Marvin, but I tried all of those, as well as some others, before I admitted defeat last night and entered the message about using the trial version of Mappoint.

The fact is that none of them work on any version of S&T newer than 2007. I have 2008 and none of them worked. I found reports of the same experience in other forums. The ones that are supposed to work with Mappoint files did not work with MP2009. So I have no reason to believe that any of them will work with S&T2009.

Using the trial version of Mappoint 2009 (in the link I provided) to export to Excel is the only thing that will work for anything newer than 2007. Nothing else will work for 2008 and 2009 versions of Streets&Trips.

gogetter,

If you have S&T 2007 or older, one of those utilities might work for you. There are also a couple of online sites that will do it. Let me know how you are progressing. When you have found a way to get the data out your choices for output preferences are as follows:

1. number one choice is GPX format.
2. number two choice is tab delimited.
3. number three choice is .csv but only if you can't get it any other way.

Let me know what you are able to get out and I'll give you direction how to proceed to get it into Mobile PC.

If you have something newer than S&T 2007, you'll need to get Mappoint 2009 free trial and install it.

...ken...

Thanks Ken,

Yes, I have the S&T 2009. I just upgraded from 2008 we bought about 6 months ago, then the newer version came out. It's not that I don't like S&T because we've used it now six months. But it can't still recognize deadend streets blocked by ditches, giving me directions way ahead of my turn, which confuses me. when you 100 addresses a day with that happening it add's up. I compare it with my small portable Garmin nuvi 350 and I don't have that trouble going to an address. But you can't do multiple addresses with the nuvi 350. So after all of that, look's like I'll be trying MapPoint 2009 60 free trial.

charlie,

Hi gogetter,

When you say you can't do 100 addresses a day in the Nuvi, can you tell me what you think the limitation is?

Perhaps it would be easier to tell me how you deal with those addresses in S&T?

Are you talking about adding in a batch of 100 new addresses every day into S&T, getting S&T to find the locations and then create a single route that takes you to all of them in the shortest driving order?

I can tell you that it is possible to geolocate (get coordinates for) your 100+ addresses in bulk without Streets&Trips and then to bulk load them into your Nuvi. That's all pretty easy to do with a free online Batch Geocode site and Garmin's free POI loader.

What is not easy is Streets&Trips ability to take an entire pushpin group at once and figure out a route that connects them all. In the Nuvi (and also in Mobile PC) you can get a route that connects them all, but you have to add the locations to the route one at a time.

Tell me a little more about what you are doing now and perhaps I can help you take a shot at making better use of your Nuvi before you expend a bunch of effort on Mobile PC, which mostly just turns your laptop into a Nuvi with a giant screen.

...ken...

Ken,
We do property inspections. A third party Company gives us orders each night Mon-Fri, I run my mouse over all the addresses/locations hi-lighting them, then I right click anywhere on the page and copy. Then I go and open up MS Excel 2003 open and paste to spread sheet. Then I edit any miss stakes on the addresses, save to Desktop, then exit, I then open MS S&T, go to data import, match addresses or skip if they don't match, then I click on the Legend drop down menu, hi-light pushpins, right click hi-lighted pushpin, then choose to make pushpins as stops, if I don't like the way it routes, I manually make changes. Next day we travel to each locations, inspect property. Hope this make things clearer.

Charlie

Hi Charlie,

What you described is about what I had guessed from your last note. I don't know if this will be welcome news or not, but your present approach is likely about as good as it gets.

I think I can give you a process that will make it approximately as easy to get your addresses geocoded in a batch directly from your spreadsheet as you do now after you import it to Streets&Trips. From there, I think I can give you a process that will let you get the addresses and locations into your Nuvi or Mobile PC just about as easily as you now get the spreadsheet into S&T. Instead of a pushpin group it will be grouped and searched as a "Category" of custom POIs (points of interest).

However, there doesn't seem to be any other product on the market that's as easy as Streets&Trips (and Mappoint) to select a single pushpin group and have a single route calculated to cover the entire group from start to finish.

As Terry and I have already mentioned, Mobile PC (and your Nuvi) will be able to optimize a route for you and will allow you to manually force a variety of changes to that route, similar to what you can do in Streets. But it's tedious to get all the points into the route in the first place. So far I have not found a way to select a group of locations all at once, like you can with pushpin groups in Streets. I tried it this morning and it's no big deal to include ten or a dozen in the route and then optimize it. But including eight or ten times that many is a whole different issue.

Regarding the improved routing you sometimes see with your Nuvi, Microsoft uses the same supplier for their map data as Garmin does. That's a company called Navteq. Marvin and Terry and I have experience with Microsoft's Streets&Trips and Mappoint maps plus Garmin's City Navigator North America and Metroguide Canada maps. There looks to be minimal, if any differences in the actual data between the Microsoft maps and the Garmin City Navigator product.

For Canadians, the Metroguide Canada maps are quite a different matter. The map data is assembled by a different company and in most cases they are better than the products based on Navteq's data for Canadian coverage.

If you are having better luck with the autorouting on your Nuvi (which I'm guessing has City Navigator North America on it?) then the main difference will be in how Garmin's routing routines treat the map data. I think that's more likely because we haven't generally seen major differences in the data. In every case where someone has raised a routing issue in Streets&Trips, one of us has checked the same thing in Garmin's maps out of curiousity .. sort of as a sanity check, if you will. We rarely, if ever find a difference when comparing the map data. But it is not unusual to find that Garmin's routing routine handles things better.

I need to ask another question so we can go back to fundamentals, as a reality check on whether it's worth your time to pursue changing to something like Mobile PC for its potentially better routing. Or even to try something with your Nuvi as a test to see if it buys you enough to buy Mobile PC.

If you are doing house inspections, are you really doing 100 per day? Even with a 10 hour day that's 10 per hour or six minutes per inspection. And that's not allowing for driving time, lunch or even pee breaks.

I ask, because if you really need to deal with getting autorouting for a single route on 100 addresses, or even something close to that, you're probably better to not even waste your time changing. You've got the best possible solution right now, in my opinion.

If, however, you doing 10 to 12 a day, or something in that range, the effort to include each individual location into a route in a Garmin product won't be such an issue. If we are dealing with numbers in that sort of range I can help you set up an experiment on your Nuvi to see whether you want to pursue it any further for Mobile PC on the laptop.

I'm okay either way. I just don't want to see you waste a bunch of your time to come up with a predictable (disappointing) result if you are dealing with very large numbers per day.

...ken...

I don't mean to be flippant but using a >$100 program in a time-critical application seems to me to be a mug's game. These programs really are designed for leisure and pushing them to be accurate for anything else is expecting a lot.

Terry

Ken,

Not all the time my wife and I do a 100 per day. but our average has been 65 inspections per day. And yes we take lunch on the run and a quick pee break. But all we have do is take a picture of the front of the home and address number if it's not vacant, then we have check for water, lights and conditions of property. I would love nothing more that to save money. But I'm concern whether my nuvi 350 is new enough to do the job of routing. I havn't upgraded yet to the 2009 version, because I was waiting to see which way I needed to go. Once again, I value you guys opinions and help.

So, what would you suggest for what I do?

I'll be watching for an answer, too. I did some experimentation earlier this week for bulk locating and autorouting for a list of roughly forty addresses for a friend of mine who does snow removal. Frankly, I can't think of a better solution for what you're doing than Streets&Trips.

The only downside, and perhaps this is what Terry was referring to, is that Streets occasionally produces some odd routing behaviour when it encounters odd road situations. And that is something that should be easily tolerable in a product in this price range.

...ken...

I'd do exactly what you are doing and live with the occasionally wrong routing results and address errors. S&T can accept your destinations direct in the format you receive them. Something that is far more difficult for other programs to do.

Ken has pointed out that it is possible to massage the data you receive to test with your Nuvi but is it worth the effort to overcome an occasional routing discrepancy in S&T. I guess it depends on what you want to see or hear while you are navigating.

Don't sweat the small stuff unless there is a business program specifically designed for your needs.

Terry

Well, I went out again today with MS S&T on a 32 inspection route, it did okay but was off the mark for several addresses big time. Not to mention that aggravating computer pronoucing Streets, Places, State Roads, US Hwys & Lanes wrong. Sent us in the opposite of the house number we needed on that street. When you're doing a number of these things as me and my partner do, it cuts into your time to get others done. Maybe I'm over detailed and a super perfectioness. But I really like for my tools to work right. I don't mind paying for the right tool to do the job right. For me it keeps stress down. I'm always searching for the tool to do the job better, it make life easier in my opinion. Our first Property is usually about 40 miles away from our home and we keep going farther away from there. So we need it to work really good for us, because we in unfamilar territory. As always thanks for your input. I know you and Ken and others are trying to help me.

Thanks,
Charlie

Charlie, are these relatively new developed areas you visit? Usually, the map data in Streets & Trips is very good, but it does happen that a new development is not mapped right the first time, and the errors usually get corrected the next year, or the year after.

I also tend to think that for the type of work you do, Streets and Trips may be the best tool. But at the same time I think experimenting with other software may be fun.

Unfortunately, the pronunciation issue is no better in Mobile PC as it uses the same engine. I only turn it on to get a laugh at the mispronunciations. I am sure this feature will improve but, right now, I rely on the screen.

Garmin products do a better job of routing than S&T in many cases but if the underlying information is wrong (the Navteq data), that won't assist you in navigating to an address.

If you are always working in new and unfamiliar territory, I would think a backup paper map would be a great idea. Looking at the area on a larger scale ahead of time may give a better feel as to how the layout of streets/ roads and addresses works.

Terry

Marvin,

Most of the new developments are two to three years old. I had the same problem with S&T 2008 before I upgraded to 2009. I run into deadend streets with ditches, it does not recognize yet. And yes, I do understand that's it's probably the best one for now. But when we do a lot of these things it get pretty agravating when it don't go right.

Yep! I think you're right. but like Marvin says it will be nice to experiment on different software.

Now that I agree with!!

Terry

Two to three year old developments? In my experience it usually takes two two three years for new streets to for the first time appear in navigable maps, so you are actually lucky that some of these new streets are there at all.

Unfortunately, this is going to be a constant issue for you, no matter what program you try.

Printed maps are much more up-to-date, but of course they have fewer features in comparison to GPS software.

Garmin Mobile PC, the software-only version, is only US $60. Give it a try, see if the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. You may end up liking it.

speaking of agreeing. Do you know how I can get the
latitude and longitude after I save a file to .CSV to be able to use Garmin POI Loader. When we don't have a lot of addresses, I can put those in my Garmin nuvi 350.
I hope you understand what I mean.

Charlie

Yep. It's the Batch Geocode site I mentioned a couple of times earlier.

The first thing to do is download the Excel template linked in Step #1. Take a look at the template and then make a list of the addresses you want to test on the Nuvi in the same format as the sample template. Before you go to the next step, make sure you save the spreadsheet in Tab Delimited (*.txt) format.

Use simple headings, like the first four columns in the sample file. The first row will be used as the names of the data fields for all following operations.

Once you have a few addresses in your file for testing, follow the steps on the site.

After you cut/paste the finished data with locations back into the Excel file you will need to shift the columns around to make POI Loader happy.

POI Loader will accept a .CSV file with the columns in the following order:

LONGITUDE
LATITUDE
ADDRESS
{optional fourth description column}

So just move the columns around in the spreadsheet and now save it as a .CSV file. Remember that POI Loader only wants a maximum of these four columns and in this exact order. Note that the order of the coordinates is the opposite of what gets cut/pasted from the Geocoding site.

This is critical .. save the file in a folder with NO OTHER FILES in it. Name it by the name you want for the custom POI group. For this test, you could call it TEST ADDRESSES.CSV, for instance.

Now you can run POI Loader, point it at your Nuvi (turn it on and connect it first, of course, so POI Loader will find it), point it at the folder that has the CSV file in it and let 'er rip.

If the Batch Geocoder doesn't find the coordinates for all your addresses, just delete those rows from your test file and go ahead with the test using just the addresses with coordinates. Let me know and I'll tell you how to deal with getting coordinates for the missing ones in most cases.

Have fun.

Oooops, I meant really fun

...ken...

Thanks Ken, I'll try that and let you know how I come out.


Charlie

I made a web app that can automatically pull all of your Gmail contacts and export them to your Garmin. You can do up to 2,500 in batch.

http://www.contacts2garmin.com

Oldtimeguitarguy, thanks!