Google placemarks

Writers web watch		Google placemarks	The website for writers WritersServices has over 1200 pages	To help you find Search Contents
Avoiding web hazards	Tips & technicalities	Web how-to	Making most from the web	Web history & issues

Google placemarks

Google’s wonderful earth mapping offers you a way to supply a graphic to mark a particular location, say a venue for an event you are organising, or where you live. And it’s all free.

This is what you do:

First you need to download and install Google Earth. This is straightforward.

	The file is 12.8Mb.
	The system will suggest that you have a screen set to at least 1024x768 pixels.
	If your screen setup is smaller you will find it hard to click the various buttons later in the setup.

Launch Google Earth and navigate to where you want to mark.

	If you are into map reading then you could enter the coordinates as the interface or the web connection can sometimes fight you.
	You might be able to use a post/zip code.
	But you can zoom in from outer space to your front door, using the screen buttons.

It can be an exciting journey.

You might think about signing up to Google Earth now as you cannot post any placemarks unless you are logged in. However, all the placemarks you create are stored on your machine. So you can return at a later date to post them.

Once you are over the chosen spot, and it is so accurate that you need to think about the people who are going to use the placemark.

	Choose Add/ Placemark from the menu. You can also click the pin icon on the screen. (If you only want to mark a general area then think about using overlays instead of placemarks.)
	A description box will pop up and you will get another chance to refine the exact spot for your placemark – so go for the main entrance rather than the fire exit. Provide a useful title and description. ‘My place’ or ‘The Club’ are not very useful.
	There is a button at the end of the name entry line – If you click this, you get to choose from an extensive range of placemarker icons. If you don’t like any of these then click Custom. to do this just copy and paste the image you want onto the map.
	Next set the scale and opacity to suit. JPGs are not as flexible as GIFs because the latter allows the background to be transparent so the map will show through the blank bits and edges of your placemark. If you set this to 20% it looks like a watermark and 100% is rather intrusive. A setting of 50-60% allows the map to flow through your placemarker.
	Now click the View tab on the popup and adjust the tilt and heading. Imagine that you had an icon of a front door then Google lets you orient it to indicate the entrance. Again, you need to imagine a person with this map in their hand approaching your location. Will they find the entrance or drive into the garbage bins? You will need to experiment a bit to get the orientation right and do check back that the place has not moved.

If everything looks good then click OK.

If this is your first placemark, you need to register with Google Earth. There is an active forum about the use of the facilities provided by Google Earth.

Sharing your placemark

Now choose File/Save/Save file to make this a file that is linked to the web. You will be invited to go and double check that there is not a similar placemark already. If there is, you can talk to the person who created it through the forum.

Layers

When you save it, you set the layer that is appropriate. The layers allow roads, sports facilities and historical features to be selected by Google Earth users so that they see makers which are appropriate to their interest.

Your privacy and security

If this is your private address and you only want to share it with friends and family, then on the same file menu select the email option to share your placemark with selected friends through your normal email client software (so these messages will sit in your outbox until they are sent).

More options