Republic of Ireland Map produced for a customer

We had a request from on of our World of Maps customers from www.bjdesign.com for a PowerPoint map of Ireland for a customer who was setting up sales territories. We have included that map in our Great Britain map all along but didn't have it as a separate map. Not sure why that happen, but sometimes things get over looked. The customer asked about an individual one, so easy enough to make up. I took the Great Britain map and deleted the UK parts and then enlarged the Ireland side, fixed the text a little and there you are. Our maps are pretty flexible and easy to change. Once done I sent the map off to the UK for the customer. We received back and very comment and I am glad to help.

Here is the comment, thank you very much, we love comments and we love finding out where we have holes in the collection. I will get this new map into the collection.

"Bruce, that's fantastic, thank you!
We use your maps every day when selling territories. Best maps we've ever bought!"

Paul

Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, editable PowerPoint Map

Map Monday Video • US National Country Map with Names in PowerPoint

It is time for our Map Monday Video so on to a question that came into our comment box, people send us all kinds of questions and we love to get them.

Today's question comes a viewers boss and the question is do you have an editable national US County PowerPoint map with all of the names listed on the map.

Answer:
So they're asking about our USA National County editable PowerPoint map. This is the map the entire national US County editable PowerPoint map. This map is in PowerPoint and it has all the counties in United States all 3120 of them and also has all of their names on it.

So lets bring that map up here in PowerPoint so you can see that. So this is a fully editable National US map of all the counties in PowerPoint, all 3120 of them in United States. So if I click on it let's say the state of Maine, lets zoom in here and I can select this state and go to my formatting palette and choose another color. We can change this orange color to say a yellow color. I still have the entire state grouped so it all changes to one color, but everything in this state is a separate editable County. The state of Maine is made up of individual county maps and I can go and ungroup it in PowerPoint and work each individual county. I go to the draw toolbar and I can just click right here and I can now see all the individual counties are separate objects. I can color each individual object and fill it with its own color.

So that's what people are asking about, that can they change these things, are they editable but what they are really looking for is are there names on all of these counties. Because this is a big map with a lot of names and a lot of counties and they wanted to go in there and find their specific County and make the changes. So yes we have a US national County map with all the usual counties and that we also have a version with names on it. The name version isn't on the site but we can send you that our version if you purchase of the regular County map. It is a pretty big file so we just email it to you rather than set up for download like all the others.

So not only can you change all the individual counties and the colors but also the text you just have to ungroup it is we have it group by state can keep it organized. Each one of those names can be change, formatted differently, deleted or moved around or whatever it is you want to do.


Here is the link for the actual map on MapsForDesign.com
http://www.mapsfordesign.com/US-National-County-Editable-County-PowerPoint-Map-for-Building-Regions.html

We have lots of customers go in and customize this map especially when they have a need for a general territory map that's crossing state lines. There are much more sophisticated maps out there that are tied to a database, we don't have that. Our map is all done by hand but it works pretty well when you need to set up a basic territory map.
We also have individual state county maps in PowerPoint.

The slide package also includes a version of the map with names, without names, on a blank map with just names, and also a state outline map that can be laid on top to give you a nice borders.

For More Information, These maps are located on both of our sites on
http://www.BJDesign.com our subscription site
http://www.Mapsfordesign.com our site for individual maps

Zip Code Boundary Maps, Do You Sell Them?

We get this question now and then on if we sell zip code maps on our download editable map sites. The answer is no, but we usually refere people over to a couple of places that do carry them.

Question:
Do you guys sell zip code boundary maps? I can't seem to find them? or Can one display data on your maps

Answer:
The answer is unfortunately no, our maps are very simple and easy to edit and customize but we don't have any ability to display data or to show zip codes. Folks love what we have but zip code maps are a level or two above what we carry. We do have a very nice collection of editable county maps in a couple of different ways that are great for highlighting marketing data and work very well.

If the customer is a marketing person then I usually send them over to look at www.territorymapper.com. If they have lots of money then I usually say look at www.mapinfo.com, they are the biggies in this area. If the questions comes more from a delivery, transportation directions then I say to look at  www.ZipCodeMaps.com. Either of these sites can be very helpful.

How Do I Plot a Lot of Data on a Map?

Hi all, this is a question I get pretty regularly. The questions goes like, I have a database of information, maybe some sales or marketing data, and I want to plot it on a map. Can I do this with your maps?

The answer is yes of course. But then the question goes deeper with, I have a lot of data, then the answer goes to maybe. Our maps are great for setting up basic sales territories, or plotting where your offices are located, where your customers come from, etc. They are easy to use, and color and add info. You can easily pull out states or countries to highlight a region. Use the stock shapes that come with PowerPoint to add locations. Our customers love our maps for their nice simple ease of use.

But if you have a lot of material then doing this kind of thing by hand becomes a real drag. That is when you need to move up to the bigger programs. Programs like Territorymapper or real big applications like Mapinfo. These programs allow you to take your database or excel spread sheet and plot it automatically over a map. Saving you tons of time and also allowing you to update and do analysis as you need.

Many of our customers use both our maps and the bigger programs. They need to do something quick or maybe the overview USA slide or World slide, they turn to our maps. And then to show the drill down of detail, the nitty gritty stuff, they go to one of these big guys. We love customers to buy our maps for their projects, but sometime it is just better to use a product that is more designed for massive amounts of information.

Here are some of the more popular programs on the market.

http://www.territorymapper.com/
A Windows based desktop application to help design territories. This is the one we recommend the most. It is affordable and it seems to show up more than others with positive reviews.

http://www.tactician.com/
A business mapping software for site selection, sales territory alignment planning and Market analysis

http://www.maponics.com
Maponics specializes in custom mapping services and GIS data for businesses.

MS MapPoint, http://www.microsoft.com
Gives you the power to visualize business data, communicate insights with instant impact, and integrate maps into the work you do in Microsoft Office.

http://www.mapinfo.com/
A very powerful desktop mapping application for sales and marketing data. This is one of the big guys in this area

We love you to use our maps, but sometimes they just don't fit and in that case there are lots of options.

Don't forget, blog readers get a special 20% discount on our Maps for Design editable PowerPoint and Illustrator maps, any number, any item, including the CDs, simply enter the coupon code: "MapBlog" during checkout to receive. Discount good till 12/31/2009.