MapForums

In an Excel spreadsheet (I'm using Office XP) I have a pair of columns containing latitude and longitude numbers. In a third column I have a formula of the form:

=HYPERLINK("http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&t=k&om=1&ll=" & H12 & "," & I12 & "&z=16","Google Image")

(Column H and I have the lat/lons respectively, and this was taken from row 12.)

This works very well to give me a cell in the spreadsheet I can click to get a browser opening up to Google maps with the row's lat/lon centered. I can also do the same thing with MS Maps, but I'll stick to Google in the example; the two work identically.

Now, I want to export the hotspot into a pushpin, in the balloon. If I simply export the hyperlink column in the import, I get a hyperlink in the pushpin balloon with the text and URL of "Google Image", which obviously doesn't work. So, I created a fourth column containing an expression building up the URL string:

="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&t=k&om=1&ll=" & H12 & "," & I12 & "&z=16"

The problem (which is really an Excel problem, but I though y'all might have some insight) is that Excel treats this expression as a string; when I replicate it down the column, all the cells contain identically the same string; the H12 and I12 don't change by rows as I would expect them to do. When I go to edit the string, the cell refs change to colors and edit just fine, but back in the cell they don't act like expressions, but rather just constant strings.

Now, when I handbuild a URL in a cell with the real lat/lon inserted, I get closer to what I want in the export: the balloon contains a hotspot that calls up a browser window with the proper image displayed. The only problem is that the hotspot text is the whole URL, and I'd like something like "Google Maps".

Does anybody know how to do what I want to do here?