POI Editor

How To : Convert Google 'My Maps' KML Placemarks

By GPS Nutter in How To. October 5, 2008

How To

Calculating distance between points

How to calculate the distance between any two points.

Add Phone Numbers to TomTom POIs

A quickie tip on adding phone numbers to tomtom's POIs

Create Your Own Points of Interest using POIEditor

New users to the site might want to read this guide on how to create your own Points of Interest

Install POIs to TomTom

Here's a beginners guide on how to install Points of Interest files directly on to your TomTom Navigator.

Here's a useful little trick when using Google's My Maps.

Converting KML files usually doesn't cause us any problems, but if you're using Google's 'My Maps' to store your placemarks online, saving this data as KML is mostly useless for us as the actual point data isn't stored locally - there's nothing of use to us in the KML.

To get round this right-click on the "View in Google Earth" link on the map, (it's displayed along the top of the map next to RSS link) and select "Copy Shortcut" if you're using IE, or "Copy Link Location" if using Firefox.

Paste this URL into your browser's address bar.

Find the "output=nl" part in the url string and change it to "output=kml", press enter and the a KML file will be downloaded containing all the placemark data.

We can then use this KML file in POI Editor - just select 'Load POI' and then edit or convert as normal.

Convert Google Kml Comments

No "copy Shortcut"

What is there is not the "Copy Shortcut" option when I right click on the "View in Google Earth" link??

Posted by ShannonAugust 26, 2009 Corrections

Thanks for the correction. I've reworded it a bit, maybe it's easier to understand now. Basically its just changing a parameter of a url, couldn't be easier.
Not sure about that "Unavailable message", where does that appear?

Posted by DavidMay 29, 2009 No Luv

this is still not working for me, even with the correction above. I simply get a "... is currently unavailable" error.

Posted by KevinMay 29, 2009 Small Correction

In the instructions "Remove the "output=nl" to "output=kml"" should read "Change the "output=nl" to "output=kml". It makes a big difference.

Posted by Andrew PaveyMay 12, 2009

Add a comment...