Hi Stu,
While it is certainly _possible_ to do this in PowerPoint, what you are
mapping and how you choose to display it should determine whether it is
_preferable_ to do this in PowerPoint. It may also depend on your
resources at hand.
Let's say your project has an unlimited budget and no deadline. Let's
also say you have the data in a spreadsheet, and each data point is
tied to a postcode or city name. Any of the various mapping software
applications will do the job. Most of them export images that you can
bring into a slide. Caution: these packages, at least in my experience,
are big, beefy, and cost-prohibitive. Find them by performing a search
for "mapping software." (Alternately, Microsoft makes MS MapPoint,
which works with Excel, and is somewhat more affordable. The Europe
2006 version comes out in a couple of weeks:
http://www.microsoft.com/mappoint/)
On the other hand, let's say you're willing to cobble it together with
PPT as your only tool. Unfortunately, PPT has no mapping program built
in. You can use the built-in graphing application to put in numbers and
get bars or columns or lines on a chart, but it does not output dots,
colored or otherwise, onto maps of postcodes of Southern England or any
other place. To my best knowledge, this will hold true for the next
version of Office as well.
The manual method may be your best bet. Start with an appropriate map
of southern England onto your slide, and use the oval drawing tool to
create circles in the right places "on top of" your map. (Hints: 1.
hold down the shift key while drawing an oval to make a perfect cirlce;
2. zoom in very closely for better accuracy; 3. instead of the mouse,
use the arrow keys to nudge circles in small increments after you've
selected them.) Then use the fill tool to give those circles different
colors. Don't forget to draw a map legend.
Now, from a design strategy standpoint, 300 manually-drawn, colored
dots on a single map of southern England may be a challenge to both
create and comprehend. With dots large or small, there will likely be
obscuring of data. You might want to ask yourself, what if I made
several maps, each showing just one category of my data? Would my point
or my story be lost or enhanced? What is most important about the point
I am making with this information? The answers to those questions
should determine what your map(s) will finally look like.
I've drawn scores of maps like these using the latter method. It can be
maddening and slow. But displaying data against a map of a physical
place remains one of the best ways to help your audience understand
information deeply and easily.
Maps are almost always worth the cost and effort. Good luck.
Tony
Tony Ramos, PPT MVP
Specialist in PowerPoint Presentation Design
http://tonyramos.com
Home of "Tony's PowerPoint Weblog"
