How to Import Coordinates into Google Earth – Tutorial

How does import coordinates to Google Earth? Environmental professionals often use Google Earth as an inexpensive way to view and analyze data. One of the key advantages of using the professional version is that Google Earth Pro can import huge tables and place your information into the world.

In this post, we will teach you how to take latitude and longitude data from an Excel table and convert it into a placemark within Google Earth Pro. Additionally, we will teach you how to save your points as a KMZ file for use in Google Earth.

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Create placemark to import coordinates to Google Earth from latitude/longitude

• Step 1:: Opens the Excel table that contains the latitude/longitude data.

• Step 2:: Click on: File -> Save As -> Save as a 'tab-delimited' text file

• Step 3:: Open Google Earth Pro.

• Step 4:: Click on: File -> Import… -> Open the text file that was created in step 2.
• Step 5:: The Data Import Wizard will guide you through the process. You should see a preview at the bottom that looks exactly like the Excel table from step 1. Click Next.

• Step 6: Tells Google Earth which columns in your table have latitude/longitude data. (Y = Latitude / X = Longitude)

• Step 7:: Specify the field types (this step is optional). Click Finish.

• Step 8:: Click Yes to create a style template. Choose an icon that will be used to display its placeholder. Click OK.

• Step 9:: On the menu Search On the left, find your file in the “Temporary places» and click on the empty box so that its placeholders become visible.

• Step 10:: In the menu «Temporary places«, right click on your file and click «Save place as«. From here you can save your Google KMZ file. Once saved, you're done!

Import coordinates into Google Earth

One of the features that Google Earth Plus offers is the ability to import data in spreadsheet format, specifically the CSV format: comma-separated values, a simple text format where data values ​​are separated by commas and each set of data is on a different line.

However Google Earth Plus has a 100-point limit for data import. If you consider that there are free options that will convert spreadsheet data to Google Earth KML format without this size limitation, then it is not a "More".

There are two different types of data that can be imported into Google Earth:

• Step 1:: Data with geographic positions already determined. The data must be in latitude and longitude position in the WGS84 datum, the native coordinate system of Google Earth.

NOTE: : Don't worry too much about it - plot the data and see if the plotted positions are reasonably close to the Google Earth functions, within GE error limits. If they are, and they probably will be, then your data is most likely in WGS84. Don't forget that in Google Earth, positions must be entered in decimal format, e.g. 30,5 degrees, not 30 degrees 30 minutes.

• Step 2:: Data with street addresses. Importing the Google Earth Plus spreadsheet can convert them into geographic coordinates, a process known as “geocoding", but there are some free options so this will be covered in a follow-up post.
• Getting started with importing spreadsheets that already have geographic coordinates: csv2kml

NOTE: : You will receive a report that the latest version of this program is not working properly

There are at least two other programs with this name, but this is the one to have. It converts all data into text format csv in a KML file. The file name must have csv like sufi; To confuse things, some programs want CSV files to have a .txt suffix, and you'll have to rename the file extension to that.

The first line of the file csv should be the names of the data fields, separated by commas, then each successive line should have a set of data in an order that corresponds to the order of the data fields on the first line. Here is a screenshot:

Here you specify the data fields that correspond to latitude and longitude, elevations if you have that data in meters (otherwise it fixes the point to the ground, which you can also request using the checkbox), and the name you want the point to have when displayed in Google Earth.

Latitude must be positive for north, negative for south; longitude is negative for west and positive for east. Check the name of a data field in «Description» will include that data in the information that appears when you click on a point. «Linestring» creates a route, while «individual points» creates…. individual points.

Most spreadsheet programs will allow you to open, edit and save data in .csv format.

Looking for an editor designed specifically for working with CSV files?

Try CSVed or CommaWorks.

If you have a copy of Microsoft Excel, you can use this free spreadsheet macro; it uses VBA, so macros must be enabled and OpenOffice will not work.

The biggest advantage of this spreadsheet is that if your data is in UTM coordinates, it can be automatically converted to the required latitude and longitude in the KML file.

• Step 1:: Open the spreadsheet, click on the button that says «Create KML file» and a window will open. The first order of business is to select the order of the columns in which the data appears in the spreadsheet.
• Step 2:: Click the column order arrow and a drop-down box will appear showing the only possible combinations of data columns:

And that's the biggest limitation of Excel2GoogleEarth: the only data sets that can be converted to KML are those that fit these data column sets.

Do you have more data than can fit in the maximum number and types of data columns available? Tough.

NOTE: : Also note that "Easting» comes first in all of these; for geographic coordinates, this means that the longitude column should come first, before the latitude column («North").

• Step 3:: To select the data you want to convert to KML, first click one of the Sheet tabs at the bottom and then enter or copy data into the spreadsheet, with the data in the order specified by the Column Order drop-down selection.
• Step 4:: Then click on the horizontal bar to the right of the Data box:

• Step 5:: A small window will appear with the misleading title «Create a Google Earth file?«What you actually do is go to the sheet with your data, select the cells in the spreadsheet you want to convert, and then click the button on the right in that little window.

NOTE: : As in the previous window, you will see the description of the selected data cell now in the Data box. Other options allow you to set the default symbol for the display (although you can also set it using one of the data columns), use Altitude to plot data relative to the ground, include description data in the data panel for the point in Google Earth, etc.

If you're married to Excel, have to convert from UTM coordinates, or need to specify different symbol types for each point, Excel2GoogleEarth might be a good choice. Otherwise, you're probably better off using csv2kml.

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The GPS Visualizer website can also accept text data, either in CSV or tab-delimited format, and convert it to a KML file. Be sure to read the tutorial on how to create and forma tear text files for waypoints; a similar tutorial for tracks is “coming soon”.

Coming soon: converting spreadsheet data in the form of a postal address to KML, also known as “geocoding.”

Conclusion

As you can see, this is how to import coordinates to Google Earth. We recommend that you follow the steps explained so that you can successfully transfer. We hope we have helped you with this information.