@mappingtoolsAs well as using MapPoint’s built-in pushpin symbols, you can import your own custom symbols. Do this by pressing the Import custom symbol button at the top of the drop-down list of pushpins (click the arrow on the left of the Create pushpin button on the toolbar):
The Import Custom Symbol button on the drop down to the right of the Create Pushpin button
This will then display a file selection dialog box, where you select the image file containing the custom pushpin symbol.
Custom Symbol Formats
Custom symbol images must be in either the uncompressed Windows Bitmap (.bmp), Windows Icon (.ico), or Windows Cursor (.cur) formats. The image can be up to 128×128 pixels in size, and should have a color depth of 16 or 24 bits.
Although the image should have a color depth of 16 or 24 bits, MapPoint only supports a palette of 40 colors. MapPoint will substitute other colors with colors from this palette. We have a page listing the support colors complete with their component values, and they are also illustrated here:
Supported colors and sizes for MapPoint custom symbols
MapPoint does not support a transparency plane or alpha channel. Instead, transparency areas of the image are defined using one of the image’s colors. The top left pixel is used to determine which color represents “transparent”. Therefore, you should be careful to ensure that his pixel is set correctly when you create your custom symbol.
Utilities
MapPoint only lets you load one custom symbol at a time. Multiple symbols quickly become tedious, so Support-PC have produced a free utility which batch loads multiple symbols with a single operation. It is called Load Custom Symbols, and can be downloaded from the Support PC website.
Support PC also sell their own collection of custom images. Due to the widespread use of the BMP and ICO formats, other icon collections can also be purchased and converted into a suitable form for MapPoint usage.
Imported symbols can be retained for use in other maps by saving them to a MapPoint map template. This template can be saved to the startup template, if you wish to automatically have the symbols available in all new maps created in MapPoint.
I need more colors of pushpins, currently there are eight and I need close to fifteen. Can you help?
Using the above information, you can add your own pushpin symbols that use their own colors. However, the Data Import Wizards “Multiple Symbol” option can only ever work with 8 pushpins at a time. You could split your pushpins into multiple data sets and import them 8 at a time. If you only need name, location, and note text (i.e. none of the imported data fields), then you could add your pushpins manually or with a custom program. You can then use as many different symbols as you wish.
To hide or make a pin invisible is simple.
Go in to paint and create a small grey cross.
Save the cross a monochrome bitmap
Then in MapPoint import your new pin. It will now show up as invisible.
I made some mappoint 2006 custom pushpins 16×16 pixels .ico extension . The problem is , when I zoom the map in and out the pushpins do not scale with the map surface as you zoom in and out. In other words the custom pushpins I made remain larger even when zoomed all the way out to world view yet the original ones that came with mappoint scale properly when zoomed in or out. How do I make my custom pushpins scale properly like the original pushpins do? Thanks
Pushpin symbols are defined in terms of screen size (ie. pixels). Their screen size remains constant regardless of zoom level. This behavior is the same for both the built-in pushpin symbols and custom imported ones. If they look “too big”, it is possible that your ICO is not what you think it is (ICO files often/typically define multiple image sizes). Try a BMP instead.
This is for mappoint 2006 version. I took your advice and made them bmp, I actually edited an original so as to be able to round the edges so they don’t look square. This worked out great in testing and I made 00 – 100 and they show up on map and look exactly like the originals …except now when a live session is launched they all disappear, any idea as to why they do this?
I made these for my brother, here is his email to me explaining the problem.
“Oh yea guess what, I finished loading most of my guys in map point and went to
see how it works, to my surprise only one guy shows up in a live session.
I have no idea what to think about that. I did quit the session and just went in
to the map and all of the numbers of the guys are on the map. Load a live
session and they all disappear”
Any ideas?
I’m not sure what you mean by a “live session”. The custom pushpins are only imported into the current map. You can avoid re-importing them every time by importing them into an empty map and then saving this as a map template (*.ptt) file. Start a new map by loading this template (or you can save the template as the default template in the MapPoint application directory).