Adding labels
by Matt Floyd, Ashley Ohmann, Ashutosh Nandeshwar, Jen Stirrup
Tableau: Creating Interactive Data Visualizations
- Tableau: Creating Interactive Data Visualizations
- Table of Contents
- Tableau: Creating Interactive Data Visualizations
- Tableau: Creating Interactive Data Visualizations
- Credits
- Preface
- 1. Module 1
- 1. A Short Dash to Dashboarding!
- 2. Summarizing Your Data for Dashboards
- 3. Interacting with Data for Dashboards
- 4. Using Dashboards to Get Results
- 5. Putting the Dash into Dashboards
- 6. Making Dashboards Relevant
- 7. Visual Best Practices
- 2. Module 2
- 1. Connecting to Data Sources
- Introduction
- Connecting to text files
- Connecting to Excel files
- Connecting to Access databases
- Connecting to a SQL Server
- Pasting from a clipboard
- Connecting to other databases
- Connecting to Windows Azure Marketplace
- Understanding dimensions and measures
- Changing data types
- Applying filters
- Merging multiple data sources
- 2. Creating Univariate Charts
- 3. Creating Bivariate Charts
- 4. Creating Multivariate Charts
- 5. Creating Maps
- 6. Calculating User-defined Fields
- 7. Customizing and Saving
- 8. Exporting and Sharing
- 9. Exploring Advanced Features
- 1. Connecting to Data Sources
- 3. Module 3
- 1. Getting Started with Tableau Public
- 2. Tableau Public Interface Features
- 3. Connecting to Data
- 4. Visualization – Tips and Types
- 5. Calculations
- 6. Level of Detail and Table Calculations
- 7. Dashboard Design and Styling
- 8. Filters and Actions
- 9. Publishing Your Work
- A. Bibliography
- Index
Although adding labels to data points is sometimes redundant, Tableau makes it very easy to add labels to your graphs. With the help of data labels, readers of the graph are able to read the exact value of the data point instead of speculating about the values by gauging the heights of bars or sizes of shapes. However, as a designer of a visualization, you must ask this question to yourself: if data labels are important to your graph, can you replace the graph with a simple table to provide all the details?
Let's use the sample file Sample – Superstore Sales (Excel). Open a new worksheet and select Sample – Superstore Sales (Excel) as the data source.
Once the data is loaded on the worksheet, perform the following steps to add the data labels to your graph:
- Drag-and-drop State from Dimensions into the Rows shelf.
- Drag-and-drop Profit from Measures into the Columns shelf
- Drag-and-drop Profit from Measures again into the Label box in the Marks pane to display data labels next to the bars, as shown in the following screenshot:
In the simple cases, as we have seen in this recipe, Tableau places the value next to the marks. In overlapping data points cases, Tableau will hide some of the labels to increase the clarity of the graphic. Instead of repeating the value encoded in a mark, it is possible to show a completely different measure as a label. This could be misleading, however, and could confuse readers.
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