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We wrote this FAQ to answer the many questions we receive on this topic from our clients and other inquiring minds in the many electronic communities we frequent.
This FAQ is taken from Excel 97 Annoyances (by Woody Leonhard, Lee Hudspeth, and T.J. Lee; ISBN 1-56592-309-X; O'Reilly and Associates). For additional information on this title, visit the Office Annoyances site, http://www.primeconsulting.com/annoyances.
Click here to order Excel 97 Annoyances from Amazon.
In Excel 97, Microsoft has bundled in some technology from a company called MapInfo (we're assuming this based on the amount of advertising for map add-on products that you'll find in the Excel help file when looking up information on this feature). If the Map component has not been installed you can install it from the Office CD.
Microsoft Map is very nice if you have any kind of data you'd like to visually present that ties to one of the provided geographical maps. You get maps for the following geographical areas:
The map appears, and you are left with the Map object active. This means you're really in an OLE application, and you have a special map menu, and the Microsoft Map toolbar is displayed. If you are linked to data in the sheet, the Microsoft Map Control panel appears as well. See Figure 6-72 "Creating Maps in Excel 97."
Working with maps is a lot like working with Excel charts, in that you can create labels, legends, you can control how data is represented on the map, etc. And like charts we could write an entire book on the ins and outs of maps and presenting numeric data visually.
The relatively few maps that come with Excel is not as limiting as it sounds. You can, for example, create a map using the United States (AK & HI Inset) which gives you all 50 states. Then you can center the map on a particular state and zoom it in until just the area you want is displayed.
The Map applet is resource intensive, meaning that it'll gobble up a fair amount of your system resources and a whole bunch of your GDI resources. In our labs, if resources got low, we had trouble updating the map when we changed the underlying numeric data. By default, maps need to be updated manually - you change the data in your sheet, then double-click the map to activate it, and click on the Map Refresh button on the Microsoft Map toolbar (see Figure 6-74 "Manually updating a map when the linked data changes").
This button is grayed out until the linked data changes. When we ran low on available resources in our tests, this button stayed grayed out even though the data had changed. At one point we had to shut down and reboot one of the test systems in our lab to get our map to update properly.
To make the update automatic, you first activate the map, then choose Options from the Tools menu. Figure 6-76 "Microsoft Map Options" shows the various options you can set for your maps. Under Data Refresh, you can switch from Manual to Automatic. Check the Use as default for new maps check box to force the setting to apply to all new maps you generate.
Unlike charts, you don't have access to anything that resembles a data series formula, so adding additional data to a map is more involved. A new row of data can just be inserted and the map refreshed. A new column is a bit more involved: you add the new column of data to your sheet, then activate the map. Select Data from the Insert menu, when prompted select the geographic region column first then the new numeric data (this might require you do a non-contiguous selection using the mouse and the Control key). Click OK and the Map applet does the rest. Use the Map Control to fine-tune the presentation.
Overall, maps are a bit of a niche feature but will be most welcome to those of you whose data lends itself to a geographical presentation.
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