A Curiosity - Excel as a Mapping Tool

[ardak2000]

Something I created several (2005) years ago as an experiment in how far you can push Excel's Vector Drawing capabilities.

Excel as a Cartography Tool.png

The Landmasses and Water are a placed JPEG, The vector symbols/icons are layers and merged vector elements that I drew freehand and copy/pasted to flesh out the island. Given a little time, this could be a viable Map. The legend doubles as an element pool that allows me to drag and drop items from it(you create a copy of the element when you hold down Ctrl and click-drag from the legend). Not sure why I chose to place the water and landmasses as a bitmap, as you can clearly do everything in vector.

In any case, this doesn't represent my artistic capabilities, but rather is a conversation piece about an interesting way to use a very common software application. Attached you will find the original file.

-Ardak