Import Data Wizard has always been a killer feature in Streets and Trips that differentiated this software from the rest. Streets & Trips users have taken advantage of this feature in the past and have created custom data and overlay them on the map which they use for business or travel purposes. From Streets & Trips 2010 this feature got a little more exciting by the addition of the show/hide pushpin set feature. Now users can import multiple collections into a single est file and also have the ability to turn on/off the sets that they want to see on the map.

Here is how to import additional POI collections into your existing map file:

1. If you do not have Streets & Trips 2010 then please download the 60 day trial version from here and then launch the program.  

2. Open the .est file that you use for your trips or business

3. Go to the DiscoveryOwners.com POI downloads page. And select ‘Text Only’ from the dropdown list

3. Then the page would refresh and will display the list of data that is available as shown below

4. Select the zip file from the download column against the collection that you want to download and save the file on to your local disk.

5. Now go to the file saved location and unzip the downloaded file.

6. In Streets & Trips application, select ‘Import data wizard’ from the ‘Data’ menu or press Ctrl+I to invoke the Import Data Wizard. Then select the text file that you just downloaded and click <Open>

7. Once you have selected the text file, Streets & Trips will automatically select the separator character (ie, tab, semicolon or comma) that is appropriate for the file.  Normally you can just click <Next> on the dialog below:

8.  If there are valid location headings found then Streets & Trips will match them accordingly to the data types if not you will need to match them based on the data. Below shows an import that needs some manual column matching: 

9. To match column headings with the data types, simply select the data types from the dropdown list and match them against your data. And then Click <Finish>

Tips:

a. Select data type as ‘Name’ to show the POI / business name as the title of the Pushpin balloon in Streets & Trips
b. If you want any additional info to be shown in the title of the balloon then select ‘Name2’ as the data type against that field
c. If the source text file does not have a column heading (it says F1, F2, F3 etc) then type a more descriptive heading in this screen.
d. You can select an appropriate pushpin icon to use for the set or import/create your own custom icon.  (see post on Using Custom Pushpin Icons in your Maps).
e. For additional free POI collections visit: POI-Factory.com (registration required to download).

Now Streets & Trips Import data wizard will import the data and will display in in the map and will also create a Pushpin set in the ‘Legends and Overview’ pane. Right-click on the pushpin set to view properties and all pushpin management options that are available for you.