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Map Maker

StatPlanet
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Create an interactive map in minutes
1. Download Download StatPlanet Map Maker and extract the files to your computer.
2. Open In the folder 'World_Map', open StatPlanet_data_editor. Make sure Macros are enabled in Excel. Press the 'Clear data' button to remove the example data.
3. Import Press the Import data button and select a file containing data you wish to import. You can also add data manually using any spreadsheet software.
4. Save Press the 'Save data' button. This saves the data to the file data.csv.

View the results:

Click on StatPlanet.exe Flash Icon

Publish it on the web:
 Open the folder 'Web' and click on StatPlanet.html to view the results in a web-browser. Copy the contents of this folder to your website to publish it online.

See also:

Importing your own map into StatPlanet
Examples of interactive maps

For a shorter video, see Create an interactive map in 60 seconds

Contents of StatPlanet_Map_Maker.zip:

Publish your data visualizations online:

To publish StatPlanet Map Maker online, all you need to do is to upload the contents of the folder Web to a web-server. This folder contains the following files:

User Guide - Table of Contents


StatPlanet_data_editor.xls: Excel worksheets

Excel worksheets


StatPlanet_data_editor.xls: Main screen

StatPlanet Data Editor

 

A: Importing data

The Data Editor enables the automatic importing of data (see also adding data manually). You can import any file which can be read by Excel (e.g. CSV, TXT, XLS, XLSX, HTML). The Data Editor automatically recognizes the structure of your data, and can also recognize almost all the different spellings of country names. Therefore, unless there are spelling mistakes in the country names, in most cases the import should go smoothly.

The Data Editor will look for country names and associated statistics in your file wherever they are located, and will automatically restructure the data in the format that is accepted by StatPlanet.

Note that for the import to be successful, country names should not appear more than once in the data file. Also note that StatPlanet sees a "dot" as the decimal separator. In case of problems, please see troubleshooting below.

Importing HTML or PDF files:

Headers not recognized

Headers (or variables) in the data file which are not recognized are displayed once the import is complete. For example, if in your data file the country ‘Afghanistan’ is indicated with the abbreviation ‘Afg', this abbreviation will not be recognized by the data editor. To fix the problem, go to the Excel sheet 'Country names' and add ‘Afg’ in an empty cell below the corresponding country - ‘Afghanistan'. You can use the same approach for other headers in your data set so that the import macro can correctly identify them. Then, run the import macro again to import the data correctly.

Note that the import macro removes spaces in country names and converts special characters (e.g. "é") into regular characters (e.g. "e") during the import. This allows for a wider range of country name spellings to be detected. Whether country names use upper or lowercase does not matter. The data import macro recognizes English and French country name spellings and a number of variations of these spellings. Data importing has been successfully tested with many different sources - each of which have different data structures and country name spellings, including IMF, PISA, SACMEQ, UIS, UNAIDS, UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNSTATS and WHO.

The Data Editor is registered as an open source project on SourceForge and any contributions or improvements you make to the software are very welcome. (For more information, contact Frank van Cappelle:

B: Troubleshooting

The following issues can cause the import to fail:

  1. Spelling of country names: If the spelling of any of the country names cannot be identified, the data for these countries will not be imported. See the text above to solve this problem.

  2. Merged cells: Most commonly the merged cells are 'headers' For example, two columns or rows of data may have the same header (e.g. "Life Expectancy"). To fix this problem, split the merged cells (Right click -> Format Cells -> uncheck the box 'Merge cells'). One of the two cells will now be empty, leaving one of the columns (or rows) without a header. To fix this, copy and paste the header into the empty cell as shown below.

    Life Expectancy
    2000
    2005
    76
    76
    59
    62
    ->
    Life Expectancy
    Life Expectancy
    2000
    2005
    76
    76
    59
    62

  3. Country names appear more than once: If country names appear more than once in your data file, the import macro will only import the data associated with the first one. The easiest way to fix this problem is to create separate files for each list of country names, and import them one by one.

  4. No year indicated in the data file, or cannot be detected:
    All indicators are arranged according to year. You need to add the year to your data set as the header of a row or column (depending on how your data is structured). Alternatively, you can import the data and add the year afterwards. The data needs to be structured as follows (see for example the structure of the sample data in StatPlanet_data_editor.xls):

If you are still having problems importing data, please contact

C: Decimal point

StatPlanet reads a "dot" as decimal separator (for example 0.75), and a "comma" as a thousands separator (for example 1,000). This Wikipedia article on decimal points explains the notational system used in different countries.

D: Optional parameters

E: Custom maps (e.g. province / state / region maps)

StatPlanet Map Maker comes with a map template for importing your own map. This requires Adobe Flash CS3 or later. For more information, see importing your own map into StatPlanet.

See below if you wish to add a few territories using the included world map.

Adding territories (or other categories of data) to the world map version:

You can include new territories (or other data categories, such as averages) in the world map version of StatPlanet Map Maker, which will appear in the 'graph window'. This can be done as follows:

  1. Open StatPlanet_data_editor.xls and in the worksheet "Import" go all the way to the last country at the end of row 2.
  2. In the empty cells in row 2, add the names of your new data types (for example “Sub-Saharan Africa”).
  3. Press the button Save data. The names of your new data types have now been added.

You may also wish to download StatPlanet Graph Maker to visualize other kinds of data.

F: Custom regions
You can add, remove or change the region names in the worksheet ‘Data’. To define which countries are in your custom region, add the ISO3 codes for those countries in the same row as your region. You can also define the region coordinates and zoom level so that the map will zoom into the region you have defined. In StatPlanet you can get the map coordinates and zoom level by moving the mouse to the bottom-right corner of the screen (so the zoom controls appear). The map coordinates and zoom level will be shown in the bottom of the screen.

If you are using a custom map (see above), you can define regions in your map in the same way. In this case, use the codes (names) which identify the different territories in your map.

G: Adding data manually / without macros
You can also edit the data file directly (for example, if you are using software other than Excel). Open the file data.csv and add or copy your data below the header “GLOBAL” i.e. from row 16 onwards.

If the software you are using can open Excel files (e.g. Open Office), it may be easier to add your data through the file StatPlanet_data_editor.xls, inside the worksheet ‘data’. This worksheet has been formatted for easy editing.

When you are done, save the data as a 'Comma seperated' txt file and replace the file data.csv.

H: Changing settings and appearance
Go to the worksheet ‘Settings’ to customize StatPlanet, such as the appearance of the map. It may be useful to first try out various settings ‘live’ in StatPlanet (for example, see the ‘Appearance’ tab in the StatPlanet “Options” window).

After making any changes to the settings (in StatPlanet_data_editor.xls), press the button Save Settings.

I:Changing language and translation
StatPlanet has been translated into French, Spanish and Dutch. You can use any of these translations or create your own translation in the worksheet ‘Text-Translation’. Click the corresponding save button to save the translation you wish to use.