Budgeting a trip? This may help!

[jordanmfox]

At work today I was able to whip up what I think is a decent spreadsheet for budgeting a road trip. Essentially you type in anything in the green area and the blue area is automatic. It even will give you directions and figure out your distance/fuel costs if you type in the route with proper spelling.
The catch is it is in google docs (must sign up) and then click the "File--> copy" icon to make any changes. There is a seperate tab for americans. Let me know what you think? If it proves to be useless to most people, then I will take it down and just keep it for myself. (I think it is pretty nifty)

Comments appreciated!
Thanks,

[PNW Judy]

I like GoogleDocs and have used it to collaborate on a few projects. However, I think I need a bit of hand-holding. I copied it to my own MyDocs with a different name and attempted to do a trip in it but I can't get the map function to work and change to my trip map with my itinerary. Any hints?

[jordanmfox]

Ok, I think I see what you mean... I hadn't planned a route with the full route listing filled out. I just gave it a run through and it should work now. The only thing to make sure is that all the city names and state abbreviations are correct, otherwise an error will come up. If google maps can't map it, then it won't work.

Thanks for input. I think google docs is great for collaborating, or just being able to access you docs from any computer with internet.
Thanks for the input Judy.

[PNW Judy]

With a bit of fumbling, I got it figured out. The mapping feature with it is very cool. I really appreciate you sharing this. I had no idea Google spreadsheets could do some of this stuff. I think I need to play with the different Gadgets more and see what's out there.

Question 1...when you print it can you get your map to print? Even if I make the map a lot smaller so it definitely fits within the margins, I can't seem to get it to print.

Questions 2...I can't figure out how to put the hyperlink to my own directions at the "Get Directions" link. I believe you take the link that Google maps gives you, right? Do you use the one that you can put in an email or the one you can imbed? And then how do you put the hyperlink into the spreadsheet itself? Hope my question makes sense.

Again, cool tool. Sorry to be such a pest.

[jordanmfox]

You know what... I haven't tried printing it yet... I just assumed what you see on the screen is what will come out of the printer? This may be something that Google has to deal with, but I will tinker with it when I get a spare moment and let you know.

The "Get Directions" link should automatically take you to the google maps page and map the route you typed in. You simply have put your mouse over the "Get Directions" square, then a little blue box to the left pops up, and click on that... it should open a new window and plot your route in order of destination. It will only give you the quickest route to these points. If you are good at editing spreadsheets, you can move the map and underneath there are a bunch of forumulas for the directions.
Hopefully this will answer your question?

[jordanmfox]

and another quick note... to put in your own info, you have to click the edit button at the bottom, then copy the file.

[PNW Judy]

Yes, I did the edit/copy but the "get directions" doesn't seem to be working that way for me. Hmmmmm....I'll play with it some more. I might have accidentally deleted your formula?

I don't think the glitches are in your spreadsheet. I think the glitches are in my misunderstanding in how to use it and navigate within it.

[jordanmfox]

you click on the "Get Directions" square... then when you mouse is over it a little box to the left pops up?
Otherwise I am out of ideas.

And to print it with the map... instead of hitting print, hit export to html, wait for the map to load, then print it from your browser. It may not look as pretty but all the info will be there, including the map.

[PNW Judy]

I can see now that I accidentally deleted the code underlying the "get directions" because it worked just fine when I re-loaded your original spreadsheet and worked up a new trip with it. I think I remember doing it but wasn't sure what I was doing. Confused? Yeah, I was.

And, yeah, your printing suggestion works just great.

Again, sorry to be a pest. I love Google Docs but have limited experience with spreadsheets in general so this has been a bit more confusing to me.

Very, very cool tool. I'll definitely be using this for future trip planning.

[Mark Sedenquist]

The catch is it is in google docs

Nice job on this and thanks for sharing it with us.

Mark