Formatting your spreadsheet

Step by step guide to formatting your spreadsheet for geocoding

1. DO upload only spreadsheets in a supported file format

   The file needs to be a format we support.

   Good: addresses.xlsx

   Not Good: addresses.pdf

   Not Good: addresses.doc

   We support the following file types: .csv, .ods, .tsv, .txt, .xls, .xlsx

2. DO add a header row

   Use the first row of the file to tell us what the columns mean so we don't have to guess.

   Good:

   	A	B	C
   1	id	latitude	longitude
   2	123	52.3877830	9.7334394
   3	456	51.522664	-0.102534

   Not Good:

   	A	B	C
   1	123	52.3877830	9.7334394
   2	456	51.522664	-0.102534

   Good:

   	A	B
   1	id	address
   2	123	Philipsbornstraße 2, 30165 Hanover, Germany
   3	456	82 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1M 5RF, United Kingdom

   Not Good:

   	A	B
   1	123	Philipsbornstraße 2, 30165 Hanover, Germany
   2	456	82 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1M 5RF, United Kingdom

3. DO NOT send us personal or confidential data in your file

   Not Good:

   	A	B	C
   1	employee name	salary	address
   2	Alice	65000	Philipsbornstraße 2, 30165 Hanover, Germany
   3	Bob	50000	82 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1M 5RF, United Kingdom

   Good:

   	A	B
   1	id	address
   2	123	Philipsbornstraße 2, 30165 Hanover, Germany
   3	456	82 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1M 5RF, United Kingdom

4. DO ensure your file obeys the row limits

   Free trial accounts can geocode spreadsheets of up to 100 rows.

   Subscription customers can geocode spreadsheets up to 10,000 rows.

   One-time customers can geocode spreadsheets up to the number of requests the have remaining or 10,000 rows.

5. DO ensure your file obeys the file size limits

   Files can be at most 10 MB.

6. DO put the address in a single column

   When forward geocoding, ideally you should put the entire address in a single column to reduce the chance we make a mistake when assembling the address pieces.

   Good:

   	A	B
   1	id	address
   2	123	Philipsbornstraße 2, 30165 Hanover, Germany
   3	456	82 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1M 5RF, United Kingdom

   Less Good:

   	A	B	C	D	E
   1	id	street	postcode	city	country
   2	123	Philipsbornstraße 2	30165	Hanover	Germany
   3	456	82 Clerkenwell Road	EC1M 5RF	London	United Kingdom

7. DO follow our advice for formatting the address

   We do much better if you can follow our query formatting guidelines, for example things like telling us which country the address is in.

   Good:

   	A	B
   1	id	address
   2	123	Philipsbornstraße 2, 30165 Hanover, Germany
   3	456	82 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1M 5RF, United Kingdom

   Not Good:

   	A	B
   1	id	address
   2	123	Philipsbornstraße 2, 30165
   3	456	123 Main St, 81003

8. DO put coordinates in separate columns

   When reverse geocoding, you should have one column for latitude, and one column for longitude. The values should be in decimal format.

   Good:

   	A	B	C
   1	id	latitude	longitude
   2	123	52.3877830	9.7334394
   3	456	51.5226742	-0.1025238

   Not Good:

   	A	B
   1	id	coordinates
   2	123	52.3877830, 9.7334394
   3	456	51.5226742, -0.1025238

   Not Good:

   	A	B	C
   1	id	latitude	longitude
   2	123	52° 23' 16.01880'' N	9° 44' 0.38184'' E
   3	456	51° 31' 21.62712'' N	0° 6' 9.08568'' E

9. DO remove duplicate rows

   Each row counts as an API request.

   Good:

   	A	B
   1	id	address
   2	123	Philipsbornstraße 2, 30165 Hanover, Germany

   Not Good:

   	A	B
   1	id	address
   2	123	Philipsbornstraße 2, 30165 Hanover, Germany
   3	456	82 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1M 5RF, United Kingdom
   4	123	Philipsbornstraße 2, 30165 Hanover, Germany