# Can you save the results of Google Maps? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 21, 2007, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-save-the-results-of-google-maps/401091 "2007-04-21T19:09:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2007, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-save-the-results-of-google-maps/401091/1 "2007-04-21T19:09:14Z")
So if I put in Saratoga Springs, NY, and have it to a certain level of zoom (street level), can I save the result somehow? I’ve tried and it never gives me the right result. ---
**Author:** ![Phlint](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c89c15/32.png) [@Phlint](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlint)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2007, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-save-the-results-of-google-maps/401091/2 "2007-04-21T19:16:31Z")
Have you tried the “Link to this page” feature in the upper right hand corner of the page? It should convert the URI in your address bar to one that will return you to your current view of the map. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2007, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-save-the-results-of-google-maps/401091/3 "2007-04-21T19:19:05Z")
[QUOTE=Phlint] Have you tried the “Link to this page” feature in the upper right hand corner of the page? It should convert the URI in your address bar to one that will return you to your current view of the map. [/QUOTE] But that’s not what I want to do. I want to be able to save it and look at it even when I don’t have an Internet connection. ---
**Author:** ![Phlint](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c89c15/32.png) [@Phlint](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlint)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2007, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-save-the-results-of-google-maps/401091/4 "2007-04-21T19:21:36Z")
It looks to me that if you use the “Link to this page” option, and then use the “Save Page As” feature from the “File” menu (I’m using Firefox btw) that it does what you want. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2007, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-save-the-results-of-google-maps/401091/5 "2007-04-21T19:23:09Z")
Alt+PrtSC; then open “paint” and Ctrl+V – should give you a full screen-shot of your computer screen at the time you press Alt-PrtSc. If you want to edit the picture, proceed from there. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2007, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-save-the-results-of-google-maps/401091/6 "2007-04-21T19:40:06Z")
[QUOTE=Phlint] It looks to me that if you use the “Link to this page” option, and then use the “Save Page As” feature from the “File” menu (I’m using Firefox btw) that it does what you want. [/QUOTE] Don’t think that works - the saved page seems to contain a bunch of refreshes that connect to the google server again. ---
**Author:** ![Omphaloskeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bcef8e/32.png) [@Omphaloskeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omphaloskeptic)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2007, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-save-the-results-of-google-maps/401091/7 "2007-04-21T19:50:26Z")
**Noone Special** has the simplest answer. This will give a single image, but it’s limited in size to the size of your window (to get larger images you’d have to take multiple print-screens and stitch them together in an image editor) and you can’t use the nice Google Maps panning JavaScript interface. Using “Save web page, complete” probably won’t work, since the JavaScript routines dynamically load the image tiles from the Google servers (and then replace them with new ones whenever you pan or zoom); although Mozilla is clever enough to point all of the static links to their local locations, it doesn’t do that with the dynamic content. So if you try to view it offline you’ll probably be at the mercy of your cache and end up viewing only a partial map. If you really wanted a local copy that you could pan around you’d have to edit the JavaScript to point to your local copies. (You might be able to find other tile-presentation JavaScript code around; it’s a fairly common interface for map viewing.) Alternately, you can manually download a bunch of tiles using your favorite HTTP client (e.g., a Perl script calling wget) and use something like ImageMagick’s montage command to make as big an image as you want. (The single image is again not viewable in the Google Maps interface, but at least you can make it bigger than your screen without additional pain.) If you describe more exactly what you want I might be able to give some more tips. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2007, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-save-the-results-of-google-maps/401091/8 "2007-04-21T20:00:16Z")
In Google Earth, there’s a kludgey way to do this. “Do you need to be connected to the internet to use Google Earth?” [Install & uninstall Google Earth Pro - Google Earth Help](http://earth.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=21423&topic=1151) Also here and other sites: > **[Using Google Earth Offline](http://googleearthuser.blogspot.com/2007/04/using-google-earth-offline.html)** > > Google Earth uses streaming imagery over the Internet to provide you with incredible images of our world. But what if you don't have an Inte... ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2007, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-save-the-results-of-google-maps/401091/9 "2007-04-21T22:10:35Z")
Use, Google Earth (not online), rather than Google Maps. Then save it like any other file. ---
**Author:** ![Jurph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/50afbb/32.png) [@Jurph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurph)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2007, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-save-the-results-of-google-maps/401091/10 "2007-04-22T02:30:58Z")
[QUOTE=panache45] Use, Google Earth (not online), rather than Google Maps. Then save it like any other file. [/QUOTE] Google Earth includes its own screenshot feature which will save to JPG, PNG, GIF, and more. It isn’t as clean as Google Maps for showing street directions, however.