That's exactly how I've been doing it Paul, but using a Google Drive spreadsheet which loads into a placeholder. You can then use the "re-generate bitmap image" to show how the table looks and draw your map above the placeholder. The great thing about Google Sheets is you can "publish to the web" then each and every amendment is updated within a few minutes and reflected in the .xar file or Xara created site without any need for changes in Xara whatsoever.

download & preview the xar file in post #13