Hi. In this video, we’re going to go over how to take addresses from an Excel spreadsheet to create a Google Map. We’ll go over how to
format your data file, how to import your spreadsheet to Google Maps, how to format your Map and, finally, how to share your Map.
Before you start to export your list of addresses, it'll be important to set up your data file correctly. Here are 4 things you should do to
prepare your file. So, first, you'll need to decide how much detail you want to show for your addresses and then label of each column
heading with the field that it is - so for example street address, city, zip, town, etc.
It’ll be really helpful if you can decide which header you want to use as your marker label at this point.
You also want to make sure that your headings are on the first row and first column of your sheet. If not, your data will still going to work,
but the fields are going to be labeled as “unnamed” - which’ll make it really confusing to work with. And,
finally, you want to make sure that your file contains 1 single sheet or that the addresses you plan to use are on the first sheet only -
any additional tabs or sheets beyond that first one aren't going to get read.
Here on the screen is the data that we’re going to be plotting our map with. For privacy reasons – we’re not using individual addresses.
We’ll be creating our map using only zip codes from the US. But, just know that these same steps would
apply no matter what country you're plotting a map for.
And, even though they don’t contain any data, I labeled these headings just so you could see what they could look like. On your own map,
you would only create the headings that you need.
Once you’ve prepared your file, and assuming you already have a Google account and you're logged into it, you would just go to
www.google.com/mymaps - and it's going to look like this. And you're going to go to the top left of your screen and click on +Create a New
Map.
So, once you're in this new screen, you're going to come up here, to this white box, and you're going to click on Import.
And then, once you do this, you have different file types to choose from. Ours in an Excel file which is the .XLSX so we're going to click on
Select File and we'll select our Sample zip code file.
And, then once it uploads, we're going to choose the columns that we want to include in our map - in our
placemarks. So in this, for this example, I'm going to choose everything
and click continue and then we have to choose the title for your markers so
this is going to be how our markers are labeled.
We're going to choose Store Name for that. Click finish
and then this will create your basic map for you.
So, now that we've created our map, the next thing we need to do is format our map. Now, you could stop here if you wanted to - your
place markers are set and this is a perfectly workable map. But, there's a lot of situations where you
may want to add additional formatting to make it easier to understand what your map is about.
So, right now, we are formatted with everything the same. If you go to this paint roller right here. It says Uniform Style, meaning that all of
our markers are formatted the same way. If we click on that we see that we can group our places
by a sequence of numbers, individuals styles or by our
data columns that are in our file. So, we wanted to do ours by Store Name.
When we click on that, that creates additional categories. So now you see that
some of the stores have different colored markers.
Now, within that, um, you can change your labels. So, right now even though they're by store
name, there's no labels. So if I was to click on Store Names here,
you see that the label comes out to the side. So each one will show the name of the location.
Now, beneath that, we can go to each individual category. And, you see where you have a little paint can right here? This gives
you additional options. So we can change the color of these, so let's say we want this to be a little more yellow.
You can change your icon; so, if you have Parking, um,
a little bed, etc. You can go to more icons and here you see where you have a huge selection to choose from and by category. You can also
import your own icon if there's a specific one that you need to use for your map.
But we're just going to leave this as is, it's really just an example.
And then you can also change the type of your base map. So, if you come here, on Base Map, you see that you can change what
that could look like - that base, um, that foundation for your map.
But we'll just leave like this.
Something else that you can do here, and those headings that we brought in just so that you could see how they could be labeled. Well,
they're showing up on our information. Now, if we wanted to get rid of them, you would come
down here - you have different, um, different options for formatting your markers right from
each marker. So if we click on Edit, we can uncheck, Address, City,...
whoops! - we want zip code,
Save that
and then you'll see that
for all of these...
for all of these, for all of these Fun Stores, um, we now just have zip code and phone number. So that's something
else again to clean up your file, um, a little bit more.
So once you've format your map and your markers are labeled the way you would like, the next thing you have to decide is how do
you want to share this file. So, for example, right here, and still in our white box, there's a Share button. If you click on that,
um, it gives you basic information. You can change your map's name, add a description...we're just going to leave it as
Untitled Map, but once you click on that, it gives you options for how to share. So, right now, this map is set to
private. So only I can see it. You can, obviously, view it because some videoing it.
But I have a link that I can share with collaborators. Now, I can come here
and change this. And I can choose from making this map public so that anyone can see this map, you don't need a sign in for it. I can
share the link with anyone, um, and as long as they have the link, they don't need to sign in to Google either. Or, I can share it only with
specific individuals. So, we'll just click Save. And, this is what we had before, but, you see here where it gives you the options to enter the
names or email addresses of the people you'd like to share it with. So, if you know those, you would just type those in and share.
Something really important to keep in mind is about editing your file later.
So, importing your Excel file to Google Maps, does not link your file to the map. This means that any changes you make to the Excel file
after you've imported it, won't be reflected on the map. So, this may change in the future, Google is always making changes, but for now
it's not possible. Now, there's a couple of things you can do to work around this.
For small changes, what I like to do is come up here where your file is, where you see Layer Options, and you can choose Open Data Table.
Now, this gives you some options of things you can do - you can right click on any of the rows and add another row, delete another row.
If you click on the drop down for each heading, you'll see that you can sort, insert more columns, duplicate,
change what you have as your title column and, if you need to search for a specific plot point, you can search for this on the table.
Now, this
can be time consuming to do if you have a lot of data points that you need to edit. Not so bad if there's only a few you need to do, but for a
lot, um, if it's a major edit, you may want to consider creating a new map.
Now, if you need to add additional zip codes, one thing you can do is just come up here,
where it says Add Layer and just add another layer.
And, what this will let you do is import an additional file and then you would just go through the same steps. It has limitations on
how many plot points you can bring in. I want to say it's a fraction of what your base file can hold. Um,
right now I think those numbers are 10,000 and 2,000. That could change, but, um,
there are limits to
how many plot points in a layer. But, with that said, you can add multiple layers to your map and then you would just format them as you did
your other plot points. Or you could do something different, depending what it is that you're
trying to do. So, I hope you found this tutorial helpful to learn how to create a Google Map from Excel. If you enjoyed it, please do make
sure to give it a Like and don’t forget to subscribe to this channel. Thanks!