Create or Open Workbooks

A workbook contains one or more sheets, each of which can be a worksheet, dashboard or story. You can use workbooks to organise, save, share and publish your results.

Create or open a workbook

When you open Tableau, a new, blank workbook opens automatically.

To create a new workbook, select File > New

To open an existing workbook, click the thumbnail image of the workbook on the start page.

You can open multiple workbooks simultaneously. Each workbook appears in its own window.

Note: When you open multiple workbooks in Tableau Desktop on the Mac, multiple instances of the application are created, each with its own icon in the Dock. This differs from typical Mac application behaviour, where one instance of the application handles all open documents.

Open a workbook that has an unsupported data connection on the Mac

When working in Tableau Desktop on the Mac, you might need to open a Windows workbook that contains data sources that are not supported in Tableau Desktop on the Mac. To do so, follow the steps below:

  1. In Tableau Desktop on Windows, save the workbook as an extract. To create and save an extract, on the Data menu, select a data source, and then select Extract Data.

  2. Open the extract file (.hyper) you saved in Tableau Desktop on your Mac.

Open a published workbook from the server

If you have been granted the Download/Web Save As permission for a published workbook, you can use Tableau Desktop to open the workbook from the server. When you open a workbook from the server and make changes, you can save it to your computer or, if you have been allowed the Write/Web Save permission, you can save the changes directly on the server.

To open a workbook from the server

  1. Select Server > Open Workbook.

  2. If you are not already signed in to Tableau Server or Tableau Cloud, do so at the prompt.

    If you’re not sure how to sign in to the server you use, see Sign in to Tableau Server or Tableau Cloud.

  3. In the Open Workbook from Tableau Server dialog box, select the workbook you want to open, and then click Open.

    Tip: You can use the Find drop-down list or the Search box to browse or search for the workbook you want.

    You can search all workbooks on the server or find by tags, publisher, project or workbooks that you published.

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