A step by step walkthrough for turning a sheet of origins and destinations into a published arc map in PlotSet, from placing coordinates to filtering, publishing and embedding.
About 8 minutesOne curved line per route, drawn across a world map from your own origins and destinations: that is how to create an arc map from a spreadsheet, with thickness showing volume, colour showing a category, and a filter so viewers can isolate one group. It runs through the same click path any published PlotSet chart takes, with your own routes rather than placeholder rows.
If your sheet already has latitude and longitude for both ends of every route, it takes about eight minutes. Allow longer if you only have place names, since the template needs coordinates and looking them up is the one chore an arc map adds.
One row per route with six required columns: origin name, origin latitude, origin longitude, destination name, destination latitude, destination longitude. Optional columns add arc size, a colour category and a filter group.
| Origin | Origin lat | Origin lng | Destination | Destination lat | Destination lng | Passengers (000s) | Region |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| London | 51.5074 | -0.1278 | New York | 40.7128 | -74.0060 | 620 | Transatlantic |
| London | 51.5074 | -0.1278 | Dubai | 25.2048 | 55.2708 | 550 | Europe-Middle East |
| London | 51.5074 | -0.1278 | Singapore | 1.3521 | 103.8198 | 480 | Europe-Asia |
| Tokyo | 35.6762 | 139.6503 | Los Angeles | 34.0522 | -118.2437 | 410 | Transpacific |
Use decimal degrees. Latitude runs from -90 to 90 and longitude from -180 to 180; southern and western places are negative.
Do not swap the columns. If a route lands in the ocean or on the wrong continent, latitude and longitude are almost always reversed.
Keep coordinates as plain numbers with no degree symbols or N/S suffixes, or the row cannot be placed.
The size column should be numeric. The colour and filter columns are text categories, so keep the spelling consistent or one group will split in two.
The exact click path in PlotSet, from a blank template to a finished chart.
From the PlotSet dashboard, start a new project and choose Arc Map, listed under Maps. It loads with sample world air routes already bound, so you can see the column layout before using your own file.
Put the origin and destination names and coordinates on the same row. If you only have city names, look up their coordinates first and add them as columns.
Import a CSV or .xlsx file from the data panel, paste rows from a spreadsheet, or connect a Google Sheet so the map can be refreshed later. The first row is read as the column headers.
Confirm which columns are the origin, destination and coordinates. Then bind the optional size column to arc thickness, the category column to colour, and a filter column if you want viewers to isolate a group.
Open the Map tab to choose a flat Mercator view or a rotatable globe, and a light, dark or muted base map. A quiet base makes the arcs stand out.
In the Arc tab set how curved the routes are, how thickness scales with your size column, and whether colour comes from a category or a gradient. Turn on arrowheads if direction matters.
Enable the filter control to show a dropdown or buttons, and place the legend so the colour categories are explained.
Publish for a live, zoomable map where hovering an endpoint highlights its routes, copy the embed code for your page, or export a PNG, SVG or PDF for a static image.
Start from the Arc Map template with sample data already loaded, then swap in your own.
Open the templateThe last stretch is the same for every chart type: Share turns the chart into a live public link and an embed code, Export writes it out as a static file.
Activating the embed code and public link publishes the chart. The link is safe to send to anyone, and the embed code drops into any page as an iframe that keeps the hover tooltips and the interactivity. Edit the chart later and hit Recreate to push those changes out to both.
Export writes a static copy at whatever size you need. SVG stays sharp at any scale and can still be edited in a design tool; PNG and JPG are the safe choices for slides and documents. The scale multiplier is what gets you a crisp image on a retina screen.
Scaling arc width by passengers or tonnes shows which routes matter. Choose a square-root or log scale when a few routes dwarf the rest.
A pale, low-contrast base keeps attention on the routes. Save dark bases for light arcs.
Rather than dropping routes, give them a group column and let viewers switch between them.
Add a line to the header or legend, such as thickness shows passengers in thousands, so nobody reads width as distance.
Latitude and longitude are probably swapped. Latitude is the north to south number and must stay between -90 and 90.
A coordinate was probably read as text, often from a degree symbol or a stray space. Clean the cell to a plain number and re-upload.
Too many routes at equal weight. Bind a size column, add a filter group, or aggregate to region pairs.
Not sure the Arc Map is the right choice? See what it is, when to use it and when not to.
Origin name, origin latitude and longitude, destination name, and destination latitude and longitude, one route per row. Size, colour and filter columns are optional.
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