Colour-Coded Markers by Point Code in Google Earth
Last updated 26 September 2026
Give trees, manholes, benchmarks and every other code its own marker and folder, and keep the choices for every job.
Why bother
A thousand identical yellow pins tell the client nothing. With a marker for each kind of point — a tree for trees, a target for benchmarks, a circle for manholes — the plan reads at a glance, and each kind becomes its own folder in Google Earth that can be switched on and off.
Step by step
- Load a sheet with a column that says what each point is: a CODE column (TREE, MH, TBM, FENCE), or a description or remarks column.
- In the web app or the Windows app, open Symbols and labels and set Which column tells them apart to that column.
- Every kind gets a marker guessed from its wording — a row saying tree gets a tree, a benchmark gets a target. Change any you don't like.
- Choose the label beside each point (station name, code, level or none), its size, and from what height it appears, so a big job isn't a wall of text when zoomed out.
- Save KMZ. Each kind is a folder with its own marker.
Keep them for every job: the symbol library
Open Symbol library to set the marker and colour for each code once. Every job after that uses them.
- Codes in the current sheet are listed first, with how many points use them. Press Change to pick a marker and colour.
- A code that isn't in the library yet shows Keep; press it to add it. You can also type a new code, such as HYDRANT, and press Add.
- Standard codes come with the program; Reset puts one back to its standard look.
- Export library saves the whole library as a file, and Import library loads it — the way to give the whole team the same symbols.
Your own marker images
You can use your own images as markers too. They travel inside the file, so save as KMZ, not KML — see KML vs KMZ.
Codes do more than markers
The same codes join points into lines and plots — see boundaries and land area — and become layers in a DXF — see survey points to DXF.
Try it with your own sheet