Earth Outreach

Polygons can be used as 3D bar graphs in Google Earth. One example is The USHMM's Crisis in Darfur layer, which uses polygons to represent number of refugees and displaced people.

Organize your Places with Folders

1. To add a folder, go to the Add menu and select Folder
2. In the New Folder dialog box, type in a name for the folder in the Name field. In this example, we typed “My Google Earth Project”.
3. Click OK. Your new folder is added to the Places panel.
4. Click-and-drag each place (your placemarks, paths, and polygons) into the folder to organize your project.

• To play a tour of all the items in the folder by the order in which they are listed, click the Play Folder button:
• To edit a folder's name or description, right-click on the folder in the Places panel, and choose Properties (on a PC) or Get Info (on a Mac).

Embed Images in your Balloons

Google Earth balloons can be customized using HTML. You can add font sizes, styles, and colors, links, tables, and images into your balloons by including it as HTML in the Description.

1. Choose a placemark you've already created, such as the placemark created earlier in this tutorial.
2. To edit the placemark, right-click on the placemark in the 3D viewer or in the Places panel, and choose Properties (on a PC) or Get Info (on a Mac).
3. Click on the “Add web image. ” button, and copy and paste the following image URL (which references an online photo of a bristlecone pine tree) into the Image URL box. Then click OK. http://earth.google.com/outreach/images/stories_adelia3.jpg
4. You will see the HTML code for the image automatically entered into the Description field.
5. On a new line add the text “

   For more information about Bristlecone Pine trees, see the White Mountain Research Station.”

6. Select the text “White Mountain Research Station” and click on the “Add link. ” button. Copy and paste the following URL (which reference the URL of the research station) into the Link URL box. Then click OK. 'http://www.wmrc.edu/'
7. You will now see the HTML code for the link automatically entered around the text you highlighted in the Description field.
8. Click OK to finish editing the placemark.
9. Click on the placemark in the 3D viewer, and you will see the image, text, and link in the placemark's balloon!

• To add an image saved on your computer click on the “Add local image” button in the Description section of your placemark. You can then select photos from your photo library as well as images from your folders to add to your placemark’s balloon.
• You can use a program like Adobe Dreamweaver or freeware NVU to preview the balloon design as you edit the HTML code.
• The Spreadsheet Mapper tool based allows you to easily apply an HTML design template to the balloons of up to 400 placemarks. You can choose from six designs, and easily set the colors, style, images, and logos. See the Spreadsheet Mapper tutorial to learn how to do this!

Embed YouTube videos in your Balloons

You can easily embed a YouTube video into a placemark balloon in Google Earth.

1. Upload your video to YouTube or choose a video that's already uploaded.
2. On the YouTube video's webpage, find the Share button and click it to see more options. Find the Embed button and click it to see more options. Look for the checklist of options below the html code and select the option for “Use old embed code”. Now copy the HTML code. The code looks similar to this:

 width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ODS--K58YAY" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen> 

Save your project and share with others

Google Earth allows you to save your project to your computer in the .kmz file format.

1. Right-click on your project folder, and select Save Place As. or click on the folder and then go to the File menu, and select Save Place As.
2. Enter a name for your .kmz file, and click Save to save it to your computer. You will now find your KMZ file on your computer.

You can share the map you created by emailing the .kmz file to your friends and co-workers, or posting it on your website with a link to download it.

• A Google Earth project file is a KML file, with a filetype extension of .kml or .kmz. KMZ files are compressed files that are smaller than KML files. If you used any custom images or photos from your computer, Google Earth will include them in compressed KMZ files so that others can see them too. We recommend saving your Google Earth projects as .kmz for a smaller file.
• When you save your Google Earth KML project file to your computer, it is private. If you upload the file to a web server, or e-mail it your friend or colleague, then it is no longer private. This is similar to putting any file, such as a PDF file, up on the web or e-mailing it to someone.

Discussion and Feedback

Have questions about this tutorial? Want to give us some feedback? Visit the Google Earth Help Community to discuss it with others.

• See all tutorials.