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Hi Reader,

Welcome to the Google Sheets Tips newsletter #334, your Monday morning espresso, in spreadsheet form!

I don't know about you but I LOVE MAPS.

It might be because my hobbies—cycling, hiking, climbing—mostly revolve around backcountry travel, of which maps are an intrinsic part of the game.

From as early as I can remember, I've had an affinity for maps.

So, I'm excited to share today's tip. It marries my professional work and personal use cases for Google tools.

Enjoy!

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➜ News

I.

I published last week's newsletter of useful URL tricks as a post on my website. I expanded it to include example use cases as well as advantages and limitations for each method.

​11 Incredibly Useful URL Tricks for Google Sheets​

II.

More Google Sheets speed improvements announced last week.

​Read more >>​

III.

Bulk chip conversion now available for people chips in Google Sheets. It works in a similar way to how you can easily create dropdowns in bulk.

​Read more >>​

➜ Sheets Tip #334:

In this tip, we look at how to show location data from a Google Sheet in a Google Map.

(Thanks to reader John S. for originally showing me this technique.)

Suppose we have a Sheet with data that contains location details such as an address or lat/long coordinates. For example, consider this dataset of fictitious bird sightings:

We can plot these rows as data points on a Google Map.

It's a great way to show the data visually. It adds context to the data in a way that's impossible inside of a spreadsheet.

Think about how you view and think about the data shown in this map versus the table above:

There's a huge difference.

The data comes to life.

It's no longer just anonymous numbers nestled amongst other anonymous numbers in rows and rows of data.

It's now anchored in place and tells a story.

How to create a Google Map with Sheets data

1. Go to My Google Maps​

2. Click on "CREATE A NEW MAP"

3. On the next popup, click "CREATE"

4. On the blank map that opens up, click on "Import"

5. Navigate to your Google Sheet in your Drive folder (try Google Drive > Recent) and click "Insert"

6. Select ALL the columns that contain relevant location data and click "Continue"

7. Choose a column to use as the label for the data points in your map and click "Finish"

Et voilà!

Finishing steps

Change the name of your map to something meaningful.

Experiment with different Base map styles.

Also in the left panel, you can change the color, icon, and label associated with each datapoint.

When you're ready, you can share a link to a view-only version of this map for the world to see.

Example: Bird Sightings​

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it to a friend who might enjoy it.

Have a great week!

Cheers,
Ben

P.S. Do what you love and the money will follow​