All versions of Streets & Trips allow you to add pushpins to your map.  This a great way to personalize your trip with annotations that are meaningful to you.

There are a variety of built-in standard pushpin symbols but you can also create your own custom symbols and use them just as you would standard symbols.

Step 1: Creating a custom symbol

Note: sometimes you can find images on the web that will work but remember to respect copyright laws :D

MapPoint supports the following file formats for custom symbols:

• Uncompressed Windows bitmap (.bmp) file format with a maximum size limit of 128 × 128 pixels and color depth of 16 or 24 bits

• Windows icon (.ico) resource file format with a maximum size limit of 128 × 128 pixels and a color depth of 16 or 24 bits

• Windows cursor (.cur) file format with a maximum size limit of 128 × 128 pixels and a color depth of 16 or 24 bits

If needed you can use Microsoft Paint (built into the Windows Operation system) to convert your JPG, PNG, or GIF to a BMP format that will work in Streets & Trips just make sure that Save As…24-bit Bitmap as shown below.

Step 2: Importing your custom symbol

Click on the small down arrow next to the Red pushpin on the Standard Toolbar to display the pushpin chooser.

Click on “Import custom symbol…” and browse to your custom image and click OK.

Your custom symbol is imported into Streets & Trips and added to the list of available symbols. You can use a custom symbol the same way as any standard pushpin symbol.

Save this map file and your new custom symbol gets saved with the map.  That way if you share it out to a friend they can see your new custom symbol too!

As always, don’t forget to refer to the help files if you need more details on using custom symbols in your maps.

Please feel free to leave a comment if you have a question or a suggestion for future posts.