How to transform Shape Files into Microsoft Excel Choropleth Maps – including 2 Maps of Germany by Zip Codes
On several occasions I thought (and stated) that I already published everything I have to say about Choropleth Maps with Excel.
Having said that, it seems as if “the ghosts I called I can’t get rid of now”. Recently someone asked me if I could provide an Excel Choropleth Map of Germany by zip codes. Careless and stupid boy I am, I answered “sure this is no problem”. What a misjudgment.
If you followed my previous Excel Choropleth Map articles, you know that it takes either an Enhanced Metafile of the map you can ungroup in Excel to get the shapes or at least an SVG file to transform it to an EMF file using e.g. Inkscape.
And here is the roadblock I encountered: I simply couldn’t find a map of Germany by zip codes in one of the required formats. All I could find were ESRI shape files. After hours of searching for EMF and SVG files, I gave up, simply reversed my thinking and looked for a tool to convert shape files into SVG. 5 minutes later I had the solution.
Today’s post describes how to use Indiemapper, a free online tool, to transform shape files into SVG which can then be used for Microsoft Excel Choropleth Maps in the well-known way.
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