1. Make Your Own QR Codes
QR codes are ubiquitous these days. They’re a great way to share contact details, URLs, product information, and other brief amounts of text.
To create a QR code in a Google Docs spreadsheet, first type the text for the code into one or more adjacent cells in a column of the spreadsheet. Choose Insert > Gadget > All, locate the QR Code gadget, and click Add to spreadsheet. When the Gadget Settings dialog box appears, drag over the cells containing the text for the code, click OK, and then click Apply & Close. The generated QR code will display in the gadget dialog box.
You can drag the gadget dialog box--as you can all gadget dialog boxes--and place it anywhere on the spreadsheet. To see the options for working with any gadget, click the down arrow in the top corner of the gadget dialog box. The options for the QR Code gadget include using 'Publish Gadget' to obtain some code that you can use on your website to display the QR code. You can also use Print Screen on the code and then insert it into a document or other publication.
2. Make Your Own Custom Google Map
To begin, type a list of addresses, one per row down a single column. If you want a tooltip to appear over the map location when someone hovers over the marker, type the text for this item in the cell to the right of the address. For example, to produce a map of local farmers' markets, type each address in one cell and the name of the farmers' market in the adjoining cell to the right.
Choose Insert > Gadget > Maps, and click Add to Spreadsheet. Now select the range of cells containing your address and tooltip data, and then enter a title for the map in the Title box. If your data includes tooltips, select the Last Column as Tooltips checkbox, and then click the Zoom Using Mouse Wheel checkbox. From the 'Map type' list, select the type of map--Normal is a good choice--and then click Apply & Close.
The gadget dialog box will now show a map with the addresses plotted on it. As with the other gadgets, you can publish the Map gadget for use on your website to show your business locations or places of interest to your customers.
3. Create Quick and Easy Organization Charts
Organization charts are handy for describing how your business is set up, but they also work well for diagramming website designs and displaying any other data in a hierarchical arrangement.
If you want two lines of text in a box, type one line and press Alt-Enter to start a second line. Confirm that the spelling of each name or box label is identical wherever you use it, or the chart won't render correctly. If necessary, copy the contents of a cell rather than retyping it to make sure that each entry that should be identical--such as "home" in the example illustrated here--remains so.
Now choose Insert > Gadget > Diagrams > Organization Chart, and click Add to spreadsheet. Select the cells in the two columns containing the data, and click OK. Type a title in the Title box, and click Apply & Close. The organization chart will appear in your spreadsheet.
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