Spreadsheet Mapper now with more advanced customization

Do you have a spreadsheet of locations that you’d like to see on a map? Here on the Google Earth Outreach team we talk to many nonprofits who use Google Earth and Maps to tell their stories and visualize their data. Often the data is in spreadsheets, or other tabular formats. Converting these rows and columns into a map brings the spreadsheet to life by providing geographic context and a new way to visualize the information.

Spreadsheet Mapper is a tool that enables anyone to easily create a well-designed KML file to show off their data in Google Earth and Maps. Since Spreadsheet Mapper is a Google Docs template, you fill in your data using the familiar interface of a spreadsheet, and create a great KML without any coding. It gives you all the cloud-based benefits of Google Docs, including collaborative editing and the ability to publish directly to the web.

When we released Spreadsheet Mapper 2 a few years ago, it had a number of limitations, especially with regard to the number of placemarks it could create and the available balloon templates. In response to user feedback, and taking advantage of new features in Google spreadsheets and Google Apps Scripts, we have upgraded Spreadsheet Mapper with a variety of new and improved features:

  • More placemarks: Support for 1,000 placemarks and ability to add more as needed
  • Flexible balloon design: Take advantage of even more balloon design templates and simplified starter templates
  • Simplified publication: Just click “Publish to the web” to share your map (no more fussing with URLs)
  • New customization options: Advanced users can change the default view and network link details

Ready to try it? The Spreadsheet Mapper v3 tutorial will get you started.

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Google launched the ability to edit mobile docs in 45 languages

Last November, Google launched the ability to edit mobile docs in English. Today they’re excited to announce that you can now edit your docs on the go in 44 more languages.



To begin editing, visit docs.google.com in your mobile browser, and select a document to edit. Switch from view to edit mode by pressing ‘Edit’ to turn on the mobile editor and start typing away. As a reminder, mobile editing is available on Android (2.2+) and iOS (version 3.0+) devices. You can learn more about Google Docs for mobile on www.google.com/mobile.

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All file types to any Google Account

Over the next few days we will be rolling out an expansion to the feature set of the Google Documents List API. Third-party applications may now upload files of any type to any Google Account. Previously, this was only possible for Google Apps for Business users.

This feature allows developers to roll out their solutions to all Google Docs users. For instance, it’s now possible for developers to build applications that allow all users to back up files from their local hard drive to the cloud. There are a variety of other possible uses for this feature, and some examples include revision control and file distribution. Third-party applications (such as those on the Google Apps Marketplace) can also now use Google Docs as the primary place to store their data without the hassle of creating different solutions for customers of Google Apps for Business versus the free edition of Google Apps.

After they are uploaded, files are available in the Google Docs interface:

To enable uploads for all file types, developers must use the resumable upload feature of the API, and also pass in the ?convert=false URL parameter.

We have also added checksums to all files that are not converted to a native Google Docs format. This means that if you upload a file type we can’t convert, or if you choose not to convert a file to a native format, a checksum is now available to help guarantee the integrity of the file between storage and retrieval.

We are also in the process of adding checksums to all previously uploaded unconverted files. Due to the popularity of uploading unconverted files, processing this backlog will take some time to complete.

We’ve recently made a lot of improvements to the documentation that should make implementing all of this easier. For further help, please have a look in the forum.

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New Google Docs app for Android

People are using mobile phones to access information — from email to web browsing to editing documents. Part of getting work done on the go is being able to easily access, edit and share content, which is why we’re happy to announce the new Google Docs app for Android.

With this new app it’s easy to filter and search for your content across any Google account, then jump straight into editing docs using the online mobile editors. The app also allows you to easily share items with contacts on your phone, right from within the app.

The Docs app also allows you to upload content from your phone and open documents directly from Gmail. You can also add a widget to your home screen for easy access to three core tasks: jumping to your starred documents, taking a photo to upload, or creating a new document with one tap.


And my favorite feature: Using the app and your phone’s camera, you can turn photos with text into editable Google documents with the power of optical character recognition (OCR). Just create a new ‘Document from Photo’ or select the camera icon from the widget, and your converted document will appear in your documents list shortly after you snap the picture. You can also convert photos already stored on your phone by sharing them with the Google Docs app. OCR does a pretty good job capturing unformatted text in English but won’t recognize handwriting or some fonts – stay tuned, it will get better over time!


The Google Docs app is currently available in English and works on Android 2.1+ phones. Try it out by scanning the QR code below or by visiting Android Market.


Tested on Samsung Galaxy S!

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More about Google Earth Builder

In a nutshell, Google Earth Builder is a new way for companies to share their vast repositories of geo data. Rather than needing to configure servers and support a local infrastructure, they can simply upload their data to Google Earth Builder and share it that way. It uses a sharing model quite similar to Google Docs (private, individual access, or public), and the data streams extremely quickly.

The implications of this could be huge. Not only will it be a great solution for large corporations and government entities, but provides a way for any company to generate data for a specific client (such as custom 3D buildings) without necessarily having to post them for the world to see.

An interesting point that Google made is that this data will be easily accessible to anyone (with permission) from their desktop, laptop, smartphone, tablet, etc. That makes sense, but currently the tablet and smartphone clients for Google Earth likely can’t handle this kind of data. Either their comments have been misinterpreted by everyone (including cnet and others), or we’re hopefully looking at some nice updates to their mobile products in the coming months.

They keys that Google seems to be pushing with this is that it’s easy and fast. Both of this seemed clearly evident in the live demo that they provided on stage yesterday. You can watch that video demonstration below:

There were a few fun facts in that video: There have been more than 700 million downloads of Google Earth and that people use Maps and Earth for more than one million hours every day. Wow!

The fact that Google Earth Builder isn’t due out for a few months (some sites say July, Google says Q3), means that it will only be getting faster and smoother. This could be a brilliant tool to help large entities deal with their vast amounts of data, and we’ll find out once it launches later this year.

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