Best way to do maps (with little effort) online(?)

[danzibr]

This isn't supposed to be a guide. I believe I know a great method to easily make acceptable maps for online play.

I use Excel. Make the rows and columns all uniform length. Put a thin border around each square. Walls are thick borders. Terrain/rooms/whatever is done using background colors. Letters if need be. Players get the first 2 letters of their names.

So at this point I have a map. I upload it to google docs, but here's my problem. Even changing the settings so that others can change it, it doesn't seem others can change it on google docs.

This throws a major wrench in my plan. Now, instead of just tinkering with it online, we have to constantly upload new ones.

Question: should I use a different site? How do you do such things (assuming you do)?

Can be good for PbP, or simply skypin with your family (like I do).

Here (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B26nea0lDCF9VW9RYm5YTm5RYzA/edit?usp=sharing)'s the file, btw.

[Rabidmuskrat]

Googledocs have their own templates you can use, one of them is pretty much excel. That is what we use in our latest campaign and everyone can edit it on the fly with no problems. We even use it to type messages to each other.

It also saves any changes so you can continue. Play around there, I'm not the one who set it up but my brother who did says he just used a template.

[Brookshw]

Is everyone on gmail and has the drive app installed? Did you share it with them and give them "can edit" access? The plan is sound.

[danzibr]

Is everyone on gmail and has the drive app installed? Did you share it with them and give them "can edit" access? The plan is sound.
Ah-ha! I didn't know I needed the drive app, or they needed it. Thanks a ton.

[Kol Korran]

Just a suggestion- on 2 PbPs I am playing, the DMs are using the "roll20" maps- It's free, quite easy to use (They have a simple tutorial), Each player that logs in can move their characters, and it looks SOOOOO much better! It's quite fun, and immensely simple. I didn't use it as a DM yet, but it's use is spreading, and all (of the few) people I know that used it, found it very intuitive and great.

[Dr. Azkur]

You should listen to Brookshw though. Use the Google version of Excel (I think it's called Spreadsheet).

[Brookshw]

It is called spreadsheet and it works well. Sounds like q technical issue and that you're using it more like an ftp. It's pretty common when starting out with drive to accidentally upload in the wrong manner. If when someone opens it they get a read only doc go back to drive and look at your open as options, you should be able to open as Google spreadsheet though that may create a second doc that you'll have to reshare. Your plan is sound, I do a lot of collaborative work with drive, you can definitely do this.

Edit: It's Google Sheets, sorry about that. If you keep having problems shoot me a PM.