Your Map Toolbox

Create labels, measure distances, and toggle shape titles

Cameron Klapwyk avatar
Written by Cameron Klapwyk
Updated over a week ago

You have a few extra tools at your disposal as you navigate around the map and organize your information. These are located at the top of your page: 

Labels

Add text labels to your map to add to a comment or legend to your work. Start by selecting the A icon in your map tool menu.

After you click the A icon at the top of the screen, you can click anywhere on the map to create a label.

A text editor will appear to edit the font type and size of the text. To save the text on the map, click the save icon or click the trash can to remove it. 

Click the lock icon to lock the label to that size so that the label doesn't grow when you zoom out the map. 

Move Labels

To move your label, simply click and drag to the desired location on the map.

Measure a Distance

How far is that Starbucks from my potential site? You can find out in the POI section of your reports or you can quickly measure the distance on the roads or the shortest distance between the two points. Start by selecting a measurement style:

Draw Line 

Draw Line lets you find out the euclidean distance between two points. Euclidean distances are more commonly described by "as the crow flies".

Set the originating point by clicking on the map, and then click where you'd like to measure. You can add any number of points.

Travel Time

Travel Time calculates the distance to a point by the road networks in an area. You place an origin and a destination and get the most efficient driving route calculated:

Zoom

Depending on how your computer is set up, sometimes your mouse-wheel will zoom in twice for every scroll you do. A great way to make sure that you are zooming in with the smallest increments possible is to use the zoom buttons. Clicking the + and - buttons zooms your map in and out one zoom level, the smallest increment possible. 

Here are couple super handy map navigation tricks that we recommend every user adopt.

  1. If you press and hold down the Shift key on your keyboard, you can then click and drag on the map to form a white rectangle, like in the screen capture below. That is your zoom area. Instead of zooming in one level at a time, it will immediately bring the area you have highlighted into focus!

  2. You can also zoom in and out using keyboard shortcuts. If you click once anywhere on the map, you can press either Ctrl (Windows) or (Mac) and the +/- keys to zoom in and out.

Keep in Mind

  • Something to keep in mind is that certain information will not populate if you are too zoomed out since it is such a large area. For instance, traffic counts won't populate until zoom level 13. You can keep track of zoom levels by looking at the URL in your browser. For example, this page is at zoom level 13:

Toggle Shape Labels

Any trade area that you create will have a name associated with it. Clicking this button will toggle whether or not to show them in the map view. This is especially great for screenshots to save time making labels.

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Still have questions? Ask for help from our Customer Success team via the blue Chat button, or email support@piinpoint.com. 

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