Using the techniques mentioned on a previous article regarding converting postcodes (well, actually full addresses if required) to latitude and longitude via VBA, the Poorhouse conjured up a Microsoft Access application to do this en masse.

This is rather more handy then using the location sensor tool in Mappoint to check through hundreds of addresses, although as it uses the Mappoint API it is limited to:

• Addresses that Mappoint recognises
• Computers that have both Microsoft Access and Mappoint installed on them

Tested with Access XP / 2003 and Mappoint 2006, but you never know, it might work elsewhere.

To use, open the application. Select the country you’re interested in from the drop-down list.

If you’ve just got a single address to find, type it in the address / postcode boxes below. You don't need to fill in all the boxes - for instance just enter the postcode alone if that's all you have. Hit Find and the latitude and longitude will be displayed, if available. There are also buttons to copy each co-ordinate to the Windows clipboard because that happened to be what the Poorhouse needed to do a lot.

More useful, if you have a whole heap of addresses to convert, look at the right side of the screen. Use the “open input table” to open a table to insert your addresses into - again this can be full addresses, postcodes, whatever you have. You can paste from Excel etc. if you want, all the normal Access table features are available. The UID column there was for a unique identifier so you can tie up the co-ordinates with the addresses easily later. Just fill it with a random unique number if you don’t really need this function.

Close the table. Press the “Process” button and wait. If you have huge amounts of addresses to convert, it can take a long, long time. Be patient!

When it’s done, the “Open Output Table” button will have in it a list of all your UIDs/addresses together with the latitude and longitude co-ordinates where found.

The end!