If you think interactive maps are too complex, time consuming or you won’t be able to do it on your own – think again! With Mapcreator, you can turn your spreadsheet into a data filled interactive map in minutes. And the best thing? You don’t need any coding skills, prior experience or professional assistance.
Interactive maps are one of the most powerful ways to visually represent data, making it easier than ever to create informative data visualizations for your audiences.
In the past, creating maps with interactive elements was a challenging task requiring advanced coding and data visualization skills. However, the rise of no-code map builders has revolutionized this process. With Mapcreator, you can easily create an interactive map from your spreadsheet data with minimal effort. So, if you’re wondering „How do I create an interactive map from a spreadsheet?“, you’re in the right place. In this article, we’ll explore the simplest method to achieve this! Below, we’ll break it down into two parts. Part 1: Prepare your spreadsheet and Part 2: upload your spreadsheet in Mapcreator.
Why are interactive maps so popular?
Before we get into the steps, let’s have a quick look at why exactly interactive maps are so popular. The main reason is just as simple as you might think, but interactive maps allow for two-way interaction. Where a static map only allows a reader to view, an interactive map allows readers to zoom in and out, select certain elements or even read live data.
Interactive maps are popular for several reasons:
- Engagement: They are more engaging than static maps. Readers can zoom in for more detail or zoom out for a broader view.
- Information: They are more informative than static maps. A static image limits the amount of information you can display, while an interactive map can provide detailed data on every element.
- Live data: Where a static map is consistent in its information, live data layers can help visualize constantly updated world events such as elections, wildfires, hurricanes, earthquakes and more.
This means that an interactive map can help convey your message more effectively, allowing you to communicate more by showing less. Now, let’s dive into the main question: “How do you create an interactive map from a spreadsheet?”.
Part 1: Prepare your spreadsheet
When you visualize your interactive map, what is it that you want to include? Depending on what you want to show, certain things need to be added into your spreadsheet. Let’s use the map we recently created for the Olympic Torch Relay as a use case. For this map, we wanted to add:
– Numbered icons for the specific locations;
– Lines representing the route;
– A pop-up with information on the dates per location.
The basis:
If you already have your spreadsheet with locations ready, make sure this is as specific as possible. For example, just adding ‘’Paris’’, might not be sufficient. There is a tiny helmet in Denmark called Paris, one of three settlements on Kiritimati Island in Kiribati is named after Paris, and even in Panama there is a village called Paris. This is just to give you an example, but the tool will then not know which exact ‘’Paris’’ you are referring to when it detects your location.
This is why we always recommend adding both a ‘’Location’’ as well as a ‘’Country’’ column. In the location column you can add the actual address or city name and the country name will be added in the second column. This will help to avoid your location accidentally being added to the wrong place.
Adding (numbered) icons to locations:
To add icons, in this use case numbered icons, you need to add an extra column named ‘’Icon’’. Under this column, you need to write the icon name as it is in the Mapcreator tool. To figure this out, you simply open the Mapcreator tool and go to the add elements menu. From here you can hover over the icons and the icon name will appear in the pop-up. For the numbered icons, this means they are named Nr1 Nr2 Nr3 and so on.
A little trick in Excel or Google Drive: when you manually add Nr1 Nr2 Nr3 you can select these holding down shift and drag them down to have the numbers continue. This way, you don’t have to manually enter all values and they will still be added in order.
Adding lines from locations:
For adding lines you need two columns, ‘’Line order’’ and ‘’Line type’’. For the line order, you just add the numbers in a growing value starting from 1, 2, 3 etc on the location where you want the line to be drawn first. For this you can use the same trick as explained above for the numbered icons.
The second column refers to the line type. Here you have to decide between ‘’Bezier’’, ‘’Line’’ or ‘’Route’’. Bezier is a curved line, Line is a straight line and Route allows you (in the Mapcreator tool) to switch between pedestrian, automotive or bicycle routes. For this use case we want to add ‘’Bezier’’ for all locations.
Adding information for the pop-up:
In this specific case, we want to include the dates displaying when the Torch Relay passed here. You can name this column depending on the information you want to add, we went for ‘’Dates’’. Simply add the information per location and you are good to go. In additional columns you can also include other information such as links, image URLs, video URLS from for example You-Tube and more.
That’s it for Part 1!
Now that your spreadsheet is ready, it should look something like this:
If you want to download this example to play around with it or use it as a base as you add your information, click here.
Part 2: Upload your spreadsheet into Mapcreator
This is where the fun really begins! After you open the Mapcreator tool, drag and drop your spreadsheet into it. You will now be asked to mark your address. For this, you can select multiple columns. For our example, this means we select ‘’Location’’ and ‘’Country’’.
Styling icons:
Now, we can see that our lines and icons will be added onto our map. From here, we can select the icons as a whole (click once) and edit them all together, or isolate individual icons (click twice) and edit them separately. Once icons are selected, a styling menu will appear. From this menu you can change the icon itself, the label content (if included), colors, scale and rotation. By default, group clustering will be turned on, but you can turn this off in the elements list if you always want all icons to be visible on every zoom level.
Styling lines:
In this example we wanted the lines to be curved, just like the example for the route from the Olympics itself. To do this, you have to select each route separately and drag the anchor points to curve them. If you want them to have more turns and curves, more anchor points can be added by clicking the smaller dots. To edit the styling of the lines as a whole, you can select them from the elements list. A pop-up menu will now appear, allowing you to change the width, line type, line style (dotted, dashed or solid) and color.
Interactive pop-ups:
To add an extra layer of interactivity, pop ups can be added to your map. For this example, we want to add pop-ups to the icons. To do this we first select all the icons as a whole. On the styling menu the third tab refers to the interactivity panel. Here you can link data from all the columns you have previously added in your spreadsheet. Let’s add ‘’Country’’, ‘’Location’’, and ‘’Dates’’ here. Everything you manually type in the panel such as for example: Torch relay from <Dates> will be added to all icons at once.
If you want to add extra information to for example the start and end point, you can double click this icon to isolate them. Now you can edit the same interactivity panel but the changes will only be made to this icon. Now you can type ‘’Start’’ or ‘’End’’, and also change the color of these icons to make them stand out from the others.
Export your project
Now you are ready to export your project! Navigate to the export menu and select ‘’Interactive’’ as export type. This will allow for more custom decisions such as:
– Interactive type (hover or click);
– Pop-up position;
– Element growing effect;
– Restrict zooming & panning.
Once you export your project, both a URL and an Iframe will be generated ready for you to use on your website.
Changes to your map
After you have added the Iframe to your website, you can still make changes to your map. Simply open the project in Mapcreator, make the adjustments you want and export your project again. The export will act as a ‘’save’’ in this manner. There is no need to change the Iframe on your website, this will automatically be adjusted as the project is exported again in Mapcreator.
If you have included a live data layer in your project, you don’t need to manually export the map for new data to be pulled to the Iframe. This will be done automatically every 30 to 60 minutes depending on the data source.
Create interactive maps from Spreadsheets
That is it! You should now be able to create interactive maps from spreadsheets. If it still seems challenging to you, you can always reach out to our customer support chat. We are here to help and sometimes all you need is a few more examples. We are here to make map making fun and simple, without losing quality or accuracy.
Would you like to know more about Mapcreator? Don’t hesitate to book a free demo to learn more about what Mapcreator can do for you and how to implement interactive maps in minutes.
