Make any other adjustments you would like, such as adding labels and changing colour. Select “Only regions with data” as the map area, and it will zoom in on the appropriate area. Next, use the Plot Area Options dropdown to select the data series. Right click and select “Format Plot Area…”. In my case, these postal codes from Edmonton showed the entire province of Alberta on the map.

Your map may be correct, but may show too broad of an area. Step 3: Adjust the Map to Show the Correct Area. It’s okay to leave the forward sortation areas labelled as postal codes. To create the map, select all data and use the Maps dropdown to create a filled map. Postal code T5K 1T1 would become simply T5K.

You can use the formula =LEFT(A1, 3) to convert a postal code in cell A1. To convert a postal code to a forward sortation area, you just need to use the first three characters. You will lose some specificity compared with postal codes, but Excel will like the map much better. Lots of data provided by Statistics Canada is available in this format. Forward Sortation Areas contain many postal codes, all with the same first three characters. Step 1: Convert Postal Codes to Forward Sortation Areas (FSAs)Ī forward sortation area (FSA) is an area based on the postal code. The message even suggests using postal codes, so why is it so hard to use them? I can’t say, but there is a data adjustment you can make for more satisfactory results. If the program succeeds at giving you anything at all without the dreaded “Map charts need geographical data such as country/region, state/province, county or postal code.” message, you probably won’t be happy with the output. If you have a list of postal codes and would like to those postal codes to create a map in Excel, you may be disappointed.

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