A MapChart alternative that lives in the slide
MapChart and an editable map file solve the same first minute and different second minutes. If the map only ever appears once, the free tool wins. If someone else will edit it, the format decides the argument.
What MapChart does well
MapChart is a browser tool: pick a map, click regions to fill them, export an image. It is free, it needs no account for the basic maps, and it covers more of the world than any paid template catalog does. For a picture of a map with a handful of areas highlighted, nothing beats it on time.
That is a real use and this page is not an argument against it. It is about the case where the output has to live in a slide that someone else will edit.
Where the workflow stops
The export is an image. In a deck that means four consequences, and they arrive one at a time:
- No area is selectable. A reader asks why Texas is gray, and the answer is a round trip to the browser.
- Labels are baked in. A typo means re-exporting, not editing.
- Resolution is fixed. An image sized for a web page looks soft on a projector and worse in print.
- The map is a separate artifact. The deck and the source stop matching as soon as either one changes.
The two side by side
| MapChart | A vector map template | |
|---|---|---|
| Output | An image file | A .pptx of shapes |
| Recolor one area later | Re-export | Select the shape |
| Labels at projection size | Fixed by the export | Vector text, any size |
| County-level detail | On some maps | 3,225 counties, each named |
| Time to first result | Under a minute | Open, copy a slide, ungroup |
| Cost | Free for the basics | $19.99, once |
Moving a MapChart image into a deck
If the image already exists, use it: Insert →
Pictures, crop to the extent you want, and set the slide
background to match the export's background so the edges disappear.
Place any labels as text boxes above the image rather than inside the
export, which at least keeps the words editable.
What cannot be fixed this way is the last row of the table: the image will never have a selectable state in it, so every future change is a new export.
When to keep using MapChart
For a map going into a document, a web page, or a single slide that will not change again, MapChart is the right tool and costs nothing. Buy a template when the map has to survive edits by other people, when the geography is county-level, or when the same map will reappear every quarter with different numbers.
$19.99 per template, one-time, with a refund window of 14 days. Browse the templates.