How editing works

Nothing here needs a plugin, a script or a design background. The map is made of shapes, so editing it is the same as editing any other shape in PowerPoint.

1. Ungroup the map

The map arrives as a single group so it stays aligned while you position it. To reach the individual units:

Click the map once to select the group.
Right-click and choose Group → Ungroup, or use Shape Format → Group → Ungroup.
You now have one shape per state, county or district.

Once you are happy with the map, select everything and regroup it. A group moves and scales as one object, which saves a lot of nudging.

2. Find a specific shape

On a county map there are over three thousand shapes, so clicking is the slow way. Use the Selection Pane instead:

Home → Select → Selection Pane.
Every shape is named after its geography — California, Cook County, Congressional District 7.
Click a name to select that shape on the slide. Shift-click or Ctrl-click to build a multi-selection.

3. Recolour

Select one or more units, then set the fill from Shape Format → Shape Fill. The data slide in every deck carries the theme's five-step ramp as colour swatches, which keeps a choropleth on palette.

For a single flat footprint, select the units you care about and fill them with the accent; fill the rest with the muted tone. That is exactly what the spotlight slide does.

4. Drive it from your own data

Every shape carries the Census GEOID, which is unique nationwide. Names are not safe to join on — there is a Washington County in more than thirty states.

Paste your values next to the GEOID list on the data hand-off slide.
Classify into five buckets. Quintiles work well for skewed data.
Colour each class from the ramp swatches.

Keep the number of classes to five or fewer. Beyond that the shades stop being distinguishable on a projector, and the map stops communicating anything.

Working in Keynote

Importing the .pptx converts each map into a group of native shapes. A few things worth knowing:

Typography is limited to Arial in the templates, which exists on both platforms, so nothing substitutes on import.
Shape names survive the import, so the Selection Pane still works.
Keynote has no "Shape Fill" dropdown — use the Style tab of the Format inspector instead.
If a deck feels heavy on an older Mac, delete the map slides you are not using. Each slide is independent.

Printing and presenting

Because everything is vector, contrast is the only real constraint. The three themes are built so the lightest ramp step still separates from the slide background on a dim projector. If you are printing in black and white, Mono is the safe choice.