Guided Tour to PC Miler
Guided Tour: Import Your Own Custom Places
NOTE: For a more detailed description of this process, see “Importing Sets of
Custom Places” in the
PC*MILER User’s Guide or on-line Help.
Earlier in the Guided Tour, you learned how to create your own custom places in
PC*MILER. Using
the Import Custom Place Wizard, you can also import custom places from a
delimited text file or a
Microsoft® Excel® file. For importing, an Excel file must be saved in Excel
Version 4 (or
earlier) format. If you have such a file available, let’s import a set of custom
places:
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Select Import Custom Places from the Tools menu.
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In the Open file dialog box that appears, select the file that contains your
custom place data. (Don’t forget to specify the type of file you are importing in the Files of type
field.)
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The Geocode File window will appear. Your data should appear in the table at the
bottom of the screen. If the first row of data is comprised of column headings rather than
custom place information, check off First row contains column headings.
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If the data in your file was separated by a delimiter, specify in the
Delimiter
area whether it was by Tab, Comma, Semicolon, or Space.
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Now you will label each of the columns that contain data, so that PC*MILER can
identify what type of information is there. With your left mouse button, click on the
heading labeled “Skip” above each data column. Select the proper category for each column
heading from the list that appears. You must provide at least a Name column and a location
(either City and State, Lat\Long, or ZIP).
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Click on the Options button to open the Geocoding Options window. Under Records
to Process, choose “Selected”, and enter “1 to 50” in the two fields beside it
(it’s okay if you have fewer than 50 places in your file). Then click OK at the bottom of this
window. You will be returned to the Geocode File window.
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You have prepared your file for PC*MILER to read and compare with its own
database, so click OK in the Geocode File window. The Wizard will begin to process your data.
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As your custom place information is being processed, a Results window is
visible. This window displays the data matching as it progresses. The statistics are updated
in real-time. They tell you if your custom places were matched with a location in the PC*MILER
database or not, and if the matches were exact or inexact.
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When processing is finished, an expanded Results dialog appears that tells you
how many and which records were matched with the database.
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Next to Add selected places to near the bottom of the dialog, check both Custom
Place Manager and Route Entry Window. When both are selected, your custom places will
be sent to the Custom Place Manager, and will also be added to a route entry window
as a set of stops on a route.
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Click on the Options button to activate the Custom Place Manager Options dialog
box. Under Adding places to route entry window, select Create a new window.
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To finish importing your custom places into PC*MILER, click Add. In this case,
the custom places that will be imported will be the ones marked as “Accepted” -- database
matches, labelled with a “+”. (This window also allows you to alter each data record, and
change the places to be added to PC*MILER. But to keep this tour simple, we’ll only add
Accepted stops. See your PC*MILER User’s Guide for more information.)
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The Custom Place Manager will appear with your imported places now displayed as
custom places. Click OK to accept the additions.
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Now that you are done importing your custom places, click OK in the Import
Custom Places Wizard to close it. You will be returned to the PC*MILER desktop. Notice that
you have added a new route entry window, with your imported places listed as stops! If
you like, you can run a route.
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