As some of you may remember, I’m studying computer science. As such, I consider myself fairly intelligent when it comes to using applications found on-line. I’m not talking esoteric things like being able to suck a bit torrent through a small IRC hole or anything…more like tools that the everyday user (maybe even my Mom) should be able to use.

Imagine how annoyed I felt when I realized that Google Maps was beating me. And badly.

Road Trip

I’ve been busy planning a 10-state road trip for this fall. I was ecstatic when I learned that Google does maps. Better yet, you can put placemarks on maps, and save them. And even more amazing, you can get Google Maps to give you driving directions - complete with a route marked on the map. And, you can even move that line around a bit, if you want to take a particularly scenic route or something.

So, I’ve been merrily planning away, saving maps for various legs, adding in placemarks for my things I want to see, etc. Then today, I went to look at one of the legs. There was nothing on the map that I had saved. Nothing on the next map either. Or the one after that. Hmmm. Maybe there’s something wrong with Google? After all, yesterday, I couldn’t get my little route lines to move at all - it was like the functionality disappeared for a day.

But the next map had stuff on it - a bunch of placemarks that I had saved. But no route information. WTF?

Google Groups

So, I did some searching through Google Maps Help, which is really just a forum. I don’t tend to like going to the Google help forums, because I find many of the responses to be snotty. For instance, many people ask the question “Why can’t I save my maps?” For the most part, the answer from some numpty is, “If you look through the Google Archives, you’ll find the answer”. Thanks buddy, that helps me, and all of the other regular folks out there a heck of a lot.

I was eventually able to find the answer to the question, and I’ll share it with you below. But I really must point out a bit of irony here. If you look at Google Maps, there is a link for “Help”. I followed it, and then selected the tap for “Directions”. I read through them carefully. Do you think they cover the concept of saving directions? I’ll let you guess the answer to that one ;)

Tips for the Rest of Us

Based on my experiences with this application, I figured I should put out a little post that might help somebody else out. Here are a few tips that I’ve figured out, and which will now make my future Google Map use much more satisfying.

1. Use Placemarks

You can save your placemarks in a map. Better yet, you can customize them; not only by adding a little note, but by changing the icon.

Here’s a little map where I have two placemarks; one the default blue blobby thing, and one the two masks representing comedy/tragedy.

To change the placemark icon: Select the placemark by clicking on it. Choose “edit” from the bubble.

Change the title and/or description however you like. Then click on the icon image in the top right corner of the bubble.

Choose one of the icons. There’s quite the selection.

2. Modify the Driving Directions

One of the joys of Google Maps right now is that you can ask for directions and then modify the route to go where you want. For instance, if I want to drive from Nashville, TN to Asheville, NC, this is the default route that Google Maps gives me:

However, I really want to drive through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. So what I do is hover my mouse over the part of the route that’s just above the park.

See the little white box with the “Drag to change route” tool tip? Drag that that little box to where you want to be driving. Google Maps sticks a new placemark there (looks like a “pause” sign), and moves the route for you. It also recalculates the driving time, and the specific directions.

Neat, eh?

3. Printing Directions and Maps for Later

It’s great to be able to print the directions for when you’re actually in your car driving. You could just select the Print button that’s hanging out just above the map. If you do that, at least in FireFox, you get a new window opening up, with some stuff, and then automatically, the Print popup box.

But if you look at the output, all you’re getting is the directions, with little maps accompanying them. How about a big map, with an overview of the drive?

Well, that’s actually easy to get. Cancel out of the print dialog box. Then, at the top of the new window that FF has given you, you’ll see a checkbox for “Show original map view”.

Check that box. The preview changes to include a full overview of the drive and the directions, and small maps. It’s now an all-in-one printout for you. Interestingly enough, you can actually modify the zoom level in the printout window. So, make sure the big map is showing you exactly what you want to see, then just print this page the way you would print any other Web page.

Bonus: If you’ve got Adobe Acrobat reader installed, you most likely have a print-to-pdf functionality, i.e., a printer that just creates a pdf out of what you’re printing. I do this in order to capture the information without actually wasting trees.

4. Saving Your Directions

It turns out that Google Maps doesn’t particularly support saving your directions. It can save placemarks, and you can create many maps, each with placemarks, lines, etc. But you cannot create a map with directions, and expect it to get saved. Somewhere in the forum, it was suggested that you just put placemarks at key places in your map, and then recreate the directions the next time you need them. I’m sorry, but that’s so clunky.

Instead, here’s a trick that I found on the forums: On the top right of the big map in your Google Maps page, you’ll see a link called “Link to this page”.

If you click on this link, you will get a hyperlink that you can use in an email, or anywhere else for that matter.

Save that link somewhere (say, EverNote ;) or a Word document) The next time you want to get this exact set of directions, click on that saved link, and you’ll get right back to this particular set of directions.

Conclusion

Google Maps is an amazing application, especially if you don’t want to go the route of a full-fledged atlas or mapping program. It’s great for finding (rough) directions from A to B. Unfortunately, it seems to have a few quirks that might be offputting to the average user. I hope these tips help you get more out of your maps.