Views > Excel charts > How to create a hex tile grid map in excel

In a previous blog post I showed you how to build a Grid Map with circles using Excel charting capability. In this blog post I’m going to start off from where we left it and use the same data and graph to transform it into the hex tile grid map—as per the below graph showing the US Death Penalty Status in 2020.

1. On the Insert tab, in the Illustrations group, click Shapes. From the dropdown menu click on the Hexagon icon. Click anywhere in the worksheet, and then drag to place the shape.
2. While the shape is still selected, on the Shape Format tab, in the Arrange group, click Rotate, and then click Rotate Right 90°.
3. Click Shape Fill in the Shape Styles group, and under Theme Colors, pick the color you want (Brown in our case).
4. Click Shape Outline in the Shape Styles group, and under Theme Colors, pick the white color.
5. In the Size group, adjust the Height and Width to 0.37" and 0.42" respectively.
6. Press Ctrl + C to copy the shape to the Clipboard, then press Ctrl + V twice in a row to paste the shape two times onto the worksheet.
7. Repeat step 3 for the two newly created shapes and change the color to orange and grey respectively. The three shapes on the worksheet should look like this:

8. Select the brown shape on the worksheet and press Ctrl + C to to copy the shape to the clipboard. In the chart select the Series "Band 1" and press Ctrl + V to paste the shape into the chart. The chart should look like this:

9. Repeat step 8 for the other two shapes/series and the chart should look like this:

HOW TO CREATE A HEX TILE GRID MAP IN EXCEL

10. Adjust the width of the chart so that the hexagons become tangent to each other and the chart should look like this:

11. Next, we need to translate the hexagons to the right for the states on rows 2, 4, 6 and 8 (counting from top to bottom) so that the hexagons fit in the right place. To do that we need to add 0.5 to the the numbers introduced in the range D6:D55 under the header "Column". The worksheet should look like this:

12. Adjust the height of the chart so that the thickness of the white contour lines around the hexagons is uniform (Width = 4.1”, Height = 3.3”). The chart should look like this: