Formatting and input
Spreadsheet
You can use your favorite spreadsheet software like Google Docs, Microsoft Excel or Openoffice Calc to generate a spreadsheet routes you want to calculate. The spreadsheet should have the following format
Origin | Destination |
your first origin | your first destination |
your second origin | your second destination |
... | ... |
your nth origin | your nth destination |
The first row should be the header. If the header is missing, the calculation will fail or the first row will be lost in the result.
Every origin or every destination can be the same in every row. If you want to calculate distances between a single origin to different destinations (or vice versa) you should copy&paste that value to every field in a row.
Google Docs Spreadsheet
If you're using Google Docs as your preferred spreadsheet tool you can see a Google Docs template here or Excel template to import here. Instead of exporting your Google Docs spreadsheet to XLSX and uploading it you can use the Google Docs ID to import your data directly:
You need to share your file (readonly) with batch-849@distancebatch.iam.gserviceaccount.com and copy the Google Docs ID (Where can I find it?) for direct import.
Microsoft Excel
If Excel from Microsoft Office suite is your preferred spreadsheet software you can see a Microsoft Excel template here.
Openoffice.org Calc
If Calc from Openoffice.org suite is your preferred spreadsheet application you can see a Openoffice.org template here.
Input data
Origin and Destination can contain the following data
Country, city or region
Postal address
Postal codes (you need to specify the country code)
Coordinates (latitude, longitude)
IATA airport codes
what3words
To calculate the distance between your inputs we need to translate names into coordinates. This process is called geocoding. Read more about geocoding here:
Input dataCountry, city or region
Due to availability of multiple results for the same input (such as Venice, Italy or Venice, Los Angeles) it is highly recommended to specify country and region of your input if available. Otherwise it is not guaranteed that the process hits the correct value.
Postal or Zip codes
If you want to calculate distances between postal or zip codes you need to specify the country code with its iso-3166-1 alpha-3 code.
Origin | Destination |
Munich | 10999,DEU |
2000,AUS | Adelaide |
Coordinates
To calculate distances between coordinates use latitude and longitude to define coordinates on the earth's surface. The format should be latitude,longitude
.
Please make sure that there is no space between the values:
and that the correct order is kept latitude, longitude
.longitude,latitude
Origin | Destination |
52,13 | Bali,IND |
Berlin | 48.8583701,2.2922926 |
Export your data
If you're done with the data generation you need to export your spreadsheet to the XLSX or CSV format.
It is highly recommended to use XLSX format to export your data from spreadsheets.
Export to XLSX (Excel)
You should easily export or save your spreadsheet to the XLSX format. This format is supported from all major spreadsheet vendors.
Export to CSV
If you're done with the data generation you need to export your spreadsheet to the CSV format. You can see an example CSV file here.
You should use "," (comma) as the seperator and cast your fields with "
You should use utf-8 encoding otherwise a correct import of your data cannot be guaranteed.
If you're unsure if the final export is correct or you get errors while the analyzation process, please email the csv file to info@distance.to and I will review the input. That's free of charge 😀
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