Featured gadget: map it in your spreadsheet

Posted by: Meredith Whittaker, Program Manager

The situation: My good friend Tomashi is visiting New York, and I want to map out a few places for her to visit near my work before we meet for the evening.

What do I do? I use the spreadsheets map gadget, which easily adds a Google map pinpointing all the addresses I've entered.

Here's how:

1. I choose some places in the neighborhood that I think Tomashi would like visiting, and add their addresses along the first column of my spreadsheet.
2. In the next column, I enter the name of each place, and a short description.
3. I highlight all of the cells that contain information I'd like included in the map.
4. Along the top of the toolbar, I click, "Insert Gadget." In the menu that appears I select "Maps" from the list on the left, and choose, simply, the "Map" gadget.
5. Finally, I give the map a title, check the box next to "Last column as tooltip" and, as is my preference, choose to allow zoom using mouse wheel. When all's done, I click "Apply and close."
   

Here's the published map (which can be embedded in any HTML page, if you'd like):




And, here's a link to the full spreadsheet, showing the guide that I'll share with Tomashi when she visits.

Of course, this is great for a lot of other things, apart from visiting friends. These include:

• House hunting (enter the addresses in one column, and any corresponding numbers, or information in the next)
  
• Road trip planning
  
• Charting restaurants, shops, or other places you'd like to visit
• Anything else where a map could flesh out a list of addresses :)