GoogleEarth

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Create Your Own Tour
Tours can be created with text only, or you can include pictures. The pictures you use can be posted online (Picasa Web Albums, Flickr, etc.) or from your own computer. You can also include any content that has "embed" code. You don't have to know what the code means, just copy and paste it from the web to your tour.

__**Start creating your tour:**__ Open GOOGLE EARTH. Go to ADD and select FOLDER. A new folder is created in your MY PLACES. Name this folder.

__**Add a placemark:**__ Maneuver Google Earth to the place you want to create your tour. Click the "pin". A placemark window will appear. Drag the placemark to the exact spot where you want it to appear on the map. Fill in the details for your placemark. (See image below)



__**Add a picture to a placemark:**__

From the a web sharing photo site like Flickr or Picasa Web Albums: Find the picture online and locate the embed code for it. (Look for the SHARE button or link.) CTRL-C to copy the code. (You don't have to know what it means. Whew!) Go back to Google Earth. If you want to add it to a placemark you've already created right-click on the placemark and select PROPERTIES. If it's a new placemark just make a new placemark as described above. Click in the DESCRIPTION box and CTRL-V to paste the code. It might look something like this.



Click OK. When you click on the placemark, you should see the picture.

__**Add a picture from your My Pictures folder.**__ (NOTE: This procedure does not work with Mac file paths)

This gets a little more complicated, but it's not that bad. To make it work you need to get the "file path" that tells Google Earth where the file is located on your computer. To do this...

Go to ADD and select IMAGE OVERLAY. (We're not going to create an image overlay, just use it to get the file path.) Click the BROWSE button and find the picture you want. Select the file path and CTRL-C to copy it. Click CANCEL to cancel the image overlay. You now should have copied the file path you need.

Now create a new place mark (or right-click and select properties) and click in the description box. Type the following code:

 The XXXXXXXXXX is where you paste the file path you just copied. It should look something like this: Click OK. The picture should appear when you click on your placemark. You can also add text above or below the picture.

__**Adding more placemarks to your tour:**__ To add a new placemark to your tour make sure you FIRST click on the Google Earth folder you created. This makes sure the placemark you add is part of your tour.

__**Saving your tour:**__ Click on the Google Earth folder you created. Go to FILE - SAVE - SAVE PLACE AS and save your tour as a KMZ file.

__**Sharing your tour with others:**__ All you have to do is send them a copy of the KMZ file you just created. Any pictures or web content you added will be included in the KMZ file you send.