Using the Google Maps gadget with Google Docs

If you’ve ever had a list of geographical data in a spreadsheet and wanted to show this visually on Google Maps, this post is for you. Traditionally, getting this to work from a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet involves some complex trickery and third-party plug-ins, but now Google Gadgets makes this very easy - and free.

Build the dataset and creating the map

If you haven’t signed up for a Google account, do this first to get access to Google Docs. Once there, click on New –> Spreadsheet to create a blank workbook.

In the first column, add the addresses you want to track, and in the second column, add the tracking data you would like displayed on the map (eg. person’s name, salesman’s revenue, etc.) Once complete, click on Insert –> Gadget –> Maps and select the Google Map. This will then appear on your workbook:

You need to define the range of data (eg. A1:B100 would take completed entries in the first 100 rows). And you can optionally add a title, and change some of the interaction options of the map. You can view the live page by signing into Google and clicking here.

Embedding the results in your webpage

Click the options arrow in the top right-hand corner of the map, and select ‘Publish’. This will show you the script needed to embed this map into any HTML page. The resulting embedded map will be linked to your underlying data in the spreadsheet.

Other Google Gadgets

Google has a range of existing gadgets that you can attach to your Google Docs, but they have also exposed the API to enable you to write your own. Although some of the gadgets are designed purely for fun, there is a growing range of gadgets that extends the basic spreadsheet functionality to include functions previously only available in Microsoft Excel. For example, pivot tables can now be achieved through a gadget and unlike their Excel counterpart, they update in realtime. You can access all of this functionality from the Insert –> Gadget options.

We expecting the functionality of custom gadgets to grow exponentially in the next few months, as Google Docs becomes a serious contender to replace Microsoft Excel.