Bing Maps is a powerful and effective tool that can allow you to work with maps and satellite images. Bing maps Excel add-in allows you to incorporate many types of dynamically generated information into your Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook documents.
Like many other Microsoft Office applications, Bing Maps can be used in Excel to help with mapping and data analysis. Here are some tips on how to get the most out of bing maps add in excel.
- You can use any image map service as your background for working Excel spreadsheets. For example, if you want to show sales data over time by location, which will be displayed on a map of the USA, go online and create an account at the website’s developer portal, which provides such maps (e.g., HERE or OpenStreetMap). The site should provide you with information about downloading these maps as picture files (tiles) and then upload them into the Bing Maps Control.
- If you want to quickly create a Bing map showing the location of one or more addresses, you can use the Bing Maps fly to feature. The fly to feature is especially useful if you have a list of addresses in Excel and want to see how they are distributed on a map. Type the first address into a worksheet cell and then press the F9 key (or click on the fly To button on the ribbon). Excel will calculate the distances between each address and the first address, and then it will create a Bing map with pushpins at each of these locations.
- You can use your aerial photographs as backgrounds for your maps. If you have digital photos taken from an airplane or a satellite, you can use them as the background for your maps. The process is very simple: save the photos as JPEG files and then upload them into the Bing Maps Control.
- You can add pushpins to your maps to mark specific locations. For example, you may want to add pushpins to show your company’s stores location or the homes of your friends and family. To add a pushpin, select the Pushpin button on the ribbon and enter the desired location’s address or coordinates.
- You can change the appearance of your pushpins by selecting different icon styles. By default, each pushpin will be displayed with a standard Windows map pin icon. However, you can change this by clicking on the pushpin and selecting a different icon style from the Pushpin dropdown menu.
- You can add custom pushpins displayed at specified locations based on data in an Excel table or database linked to your map. To do this, click on the Custom Data button and select Link to External Data > Edit Links to External Data. Then set up a link between your Bing Maps and your external data source (e.g., Excel file), using the information provided by Bing Maps Developer Portal about how to upload their maps into the Bing Maps Control.
Bing Maps offers several features that can help you create custom maps with pushpins, text labels, and shapes.