Hover over the icons in the top right hand corner of the map. Click on the one that says “Import a route…” Navigate to a gpx file that you saved on your computer and click “Open”.
The Woking Ramblers Walks Library
Woking Ramblers have collected hundreds of walks and now you can see them displayed on a 1:25000 map – the rambler’s favourite – on your computer. There is no charge and no limit to how many you can view, apart from your own patience.
Each walk is saved as a gpx file, a format used universally to save information about locations, called waypoints, that join up to make a route. There are two stages involved in using the library; (i) get the walk file from this web site and then (ii) open it on the Ordnance Survey Getamap web site. Confident computer and web site users can go straight to the links below and try it out; only basic computer skills are needed.
If you need a little help, read on. If you really have tried but are still stuck, then ask John Smith at support@wokingramblers.org
Getting the GPX File
Go to the library list by clicking Woking Ramblers GPX library . The list of gives a brief description of each walk, including Distance and Base SPEC (difficulty rating) and provides an option offered to download the file to your computer. Click “Download” on the chosen walk and follow the prompts to save the file to a suitable folder ('My_Documents', or whatever you choose) .
Go to the Ordnance Survey Getmap site at http://www.getamap.ordnancesurveyleisure.co.uk/ You need to register, it is free and there is no need at this stage to pay a subscription.
What follows is not meant to be a comprehensive manual of how to use the Getamap site. It is meant to get you started. Explore all the icons, try things out. You can’t break anything. If you get in a pickle, close the web page and start again.
Hover
over the icons in the top right hand corner of the map. Click on the
one that says “Import a route…” Navigate to a gpx
file that you saved on your computer and click “Open”.
In the pane on the left, click on “On my map”. The name of the walk appears. Click on “Go to”. Now you see the route, made up of waypoints joined together.
In the top left corner of the map, click on the box “Leisure”. This changes the map type. You can then zoom in to get the 1:25000 scale map. Drag the map about to see the entire walk. The little blue flag is the start of the walk.
Now – and this is important – be very patient and get to know what the icons in the top right corner do. Clicking too fast all over the place and not waiting for the screen to react will drive you mad. Hover over each icon and a tool tip will appear. Don’t try to print; it’s a waste of time unless you pay the annual subscription.
That’s it to get started. You can copy the route on to your paper map. Here are some more things you can do with the route on Getamap:
Click on any of the waypoints and a box will give you more information than you need. If the box is partly off the screen, just drag the map.
Drag a waypoint to a new location. This way you can modify the route.
Click on the icon in the Tools section that says “Draw a new route or modify an existing one…” This makes the icon glow and activates your cursor and turns it into a waypoint tool (although it still looks the same. Click a second time to disable it). To add new waypoints to amend or extend a route, click on the line of the route – be very careful to click actually on the line, otherwise you will just add a waypoint to the end of the route, not what you meant to do.
Click on the icon in the Tools section that says “Remove a waypoint…” This makes the icon glow and turns your cursor into a waypoint eraser. Click any waypoint (including the one you added by accident when you missed the line) to erase it. You can use this to delete a section of a walk to make it shorter. (And if you don’t click it again to disable it, it will delete every waypoint you click…)
There is a site with similar functionality at www.maptogps.com and will allow you to upload gpx files and see them displayed on a map. You can also create routes here and save them as gpx files. This doesn’t have 1:25000 mapping but it does have 1:50000 and you might prefer the layout. If you have worked through the above steps, this site won’t present any problems.
Finally? You must be joking, there is no finally. There will be more and more as web sites develop and we all get better at making the most of them.