Question

I have been searching the web for a while looking for the option to create a marker on Google Maps with a letter (a.k.a. these: https://maps.gstatic.com/mapfiles/markers2/red_markers_A_J2.png). I know Google offers Dynamic Options (https://developers.google.com/chart/image/docs/gallery/dynamic_icons) but that is now deprecated, plus the icons look old school, not like the ones in the link above.

So Google used to offer this option in the API but now looks like it’s only available for themselves? Isn’t that weird?

Answer 1

It’s not part of their API, but I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if you borrowed their image for your maps. Just upload the PNG to your own server and instantiate your marker like:

var markerImages = {
  a: new google.maps.MarkerImage('red_markers_A_J2.png', new google.maps.Size(20,34), new google.maps.Point(0,0)),
  b: new google.maps.MarkerImage('red_markers_A_J2.png', new google.maps.Size(20,34), new google.maps.Point(0,34)),
  c: …
}

var marker = new google.maps.Marker({
  position: myPosition,
  map: myMap,
  icon: markerImages.a
});