Getting started guide
What Pinscribe makes, the quick start, and every way to put a map on a page.
What Pinscribe makes
Pinscribe makes five kinds of map, each with its own page in the menu:
Tours: a tour’s stops joined up on a map with its itinerary, ideal beside a tour operator’s own pages.
Routes: drives, bike rides and walks drawn on the map, with a live mode for the road.
Trips: day-by-day itineraries made from live routes and hotels, which can be sold with dates and prices or built for one traveller to follow.
Directories: places you list, such as shops, venues or breweries, with their own pins, opening hours and a store locator.
Blog maps: the places you write about, where each blog post becomes a pin and a card.
Use one kind or all of them: they share the same listings, design and settings, and can sit on the same map. Everything is stored on your own posts, so nothing is lost if you ever remove the plugin.
The quick start
1. Choose a design under Design → Colours & style. 2. Add your listing types under Directories → Listing types & pins, such as Restaurants or Events. 3. Write a post, give it the map category and find its place in the Map location box. 4. Put the map on a page and choose it as your main map page.
Home has the same steps with a button for each, and ticks them off by itself as you go. Until your first listing is live the map shows a few sample listings, which only you and other editors see.
Three settings are needed for any map to work: which posts go on the map (Blog maps), the main map page (Settings) and the map tiles (Design → Map controls). If one is missing, a notice at the top of Home and Settings says which, and its row turns amber.
Putting any map on a page
In the block editor, add the Pinscribe map block. In Elementor, the Pinscribe map widget. In Divi, the Pinscribe module. Anywhere else, paste a shortcode such as [pinscribe]. All of them offer the same choices.
Each kind of map’s page has its own codes under Put it on a page, with a Copy button. For the full list, see “Every map code” below.
Size: Small, Medium or Large, or your own, such as height="600px". A width such as width="1000px" lets a map be wider than a narrow page column.
Every map code
[pinscribe] the full map. [pinscribe layout="listings"] your listings like a blog, no map (add group="types" for a section per type). [pinscribe layout="locator"] a store locator. [pinscribe region="europe"] one continent. [pinscribe area="texas"] a view area. [pinscribe pin="123"] one listing. [pinscribe pins="12,34"] listings in your order. [pinscribe set="best-of"] a card set. [pinscribe category="Events"] one listing type. [pinscribe country="Spain"] one country. [pinscribe type="event"] events only.
[pinscribe route="123"] one route. [pinscribe routes="only"] routes alone. [pinscribe routes="no"] no routes. mode="drive" one kind of route. [pinscribe tour="123"] a tour (tour_map="yes" for its map alone). [pinscribe trip="123"] a trip.
Parts any map can leave out or change: cards="no", filters="no", banner="no", submit="no", near="no", search="no", calendar="no", section_filters="no", reset="no", bar="below", list="open", list="no", list="only", cards="only", heading="no", follow="yes", per_page="9", zoom="13", detail="simple", trails="no", links="same".
Other codes: [pinscribe_link region="europe"]Text[/pinscribe_link] a link into the main map. [pinscribe_find] a “Find your nearest” box. [pinscribe_carousel] listings for a sidebar. [pinscribe_details] a listing’s details. [pinscribe_nearby] listings near this one. [pinscribe_ad] an ad. [pinscribe_login] sign in. [pinscribe_account] a member’s account page.
Any page can link straight into the main map with ?map_pin=123, ?map_region=europe, ?map_area=texas, ?map_type=event, ?map_country=Spain or ?map_category=Restaurants on the main map page’s address.
Building with an AI assistant
At the foot of Help & guides is a guide written for AI assistants such as Claude or ChatGPT, made from your own site’s setup. Give it to your assistant and tell it what you want (“a map of the best brunch spots in Leeds, and a weekend tour of the Dales”). With an MCP connection to the site it makes the drafts itself; without one it gives you the steps.
For imports and automation tools such as Zapier or Make, Home lists the field names a post needs, under “Creating listings with other tools”.