This tutorial shows you how to use MileCharter to produce the following table between a selection of cities in Texas and a selection of cities in Louisiana:
The files used in this demonstration can be found in the MileCharter examples file:
http://www.milecharter.com/downloads/examples.zip
The source data file TXLA_Cities.xls consists of two sheets. Sheet TX lists Texas cities, whilst sheet LA lists Louisiana cities. The example file TXLA.ptm is the corresponding MapPoint 2004 file.
To re-create the map, start MapPoint and use the Import Data Wizard to read TXLA_Cities.xls. Select the TX sheet. MapPoint may not recognize Garland correctly. Explicitly tell it to use "Garland, Texas". Rename the pushpin set to "Texas Cities" and select the large blue disk pushpin symbol. This symbol will be easier to see on the road map.
Run the Import Data Wizard a second time, but this time select the LA sheet from the same Excel file. Rename the pushpin set to "Louisiana Cities" and select the large red disk pushpin symbol.
You should now see a map with blue disks on the larger Texas cities, and red disks on the larger Louisiana cities. The key on the left will show two pushpin sets.
You can now start MileCharter from the Tools... menu in MapPoint. MileCharter will look like this:
Select "Texas Cities" in the left selection box, and "Louisiana Cities" in the right selection box. These two settings tell MapPoint the start and finish locations for the table.
Press Compute to start the chart calculation. An instance of Excel will be created. You may bring this to the foreground to watch the progress of the routine, but do not edit the sheet until the calculations have finished.
For a variation of this, you can use MileCharter to create a triangular table as used in road atlases. To do this, select the same pushpin set for both the start and finish locations. Use the Duplicates setting to control the behavior of Duplicate Routes.
The next example uses MileCharter to find the distances from depots to a customer in the North of England (MapPoint Europe is required).