Tableau Desktop and Web Authoring Help

A categorical colour palette contains several distinct colours that can be assigned to discrete dimension members. For example, when you put a discrete dimension such as Region on the Colour card, the categorical colour legend is used.

The following is an example of what to add between the preferences tags to add a categorical colour palette. Note that the type attribute is specified as regular, which identifies this palette as a categorical palette.

To create a custom categorical colour palette:

1. In the Preferences.tps file, between the ‘preferences’ tags, paste the following. Be sure to use straight quotation marks, not curly quotation marks, to delimit the name and type of palette.

   <color-palette name="My Categorical Palette" type="regular">
<color>#eb912b</color>
<color>#7099a5</color>
<color>#c71f34</color>
<color>#1d437d</color>
<color>#e8762b</color>
<color>#5b6591</color>
<color>#59879b</color>
</color-palette>

2. Save the Preferences.tps file and then restart Tableau Desktop.

3. Open a data source, such as the Superstore - Sample data source.

4. From the Data pane, drag a discrete dimension, such as Region, to Colour.

5. Click the colour legend menu arrow and select Edit Colours.

6. In the Edit Colours dialog box, from the palette drop-down list, select your new custom palette.

7. Click the Assign Palette button to assign the custom colours to each respective field.

8. Click OK.

Another type of palette is the sequential colour palette. Typically, this type of palette shows a single colour, varying in intensity. This type of colour palette is used for continuous fields, typically for measures.

The following is an example of what to add between the preferences tags to add a sequential colour palette. Note that the type attribute is specified as ordered-sequential, which identifies this palette as a sequential palette. Also, for sequential palettes you must specify at least two variants of the colour in the sequential colour range.

To create a custom sequential colour palette:

1. In the Preferences.tps file, between the preferences tags, paste the following. Be sure to use straight quotation marks, not curly quotation marks, to delimit the name and type of palette.

   <color-palette name="My Sequential Palette" type="ordered-sequential">
<color>#eb912b</color>
<color>#eb9c42</color>
<color>#ebad67</color>
<color>#eabb86</color>
<color>#eacba8</color>
<color>#ebd8c2</color>
</color-palette>

2. Save the Preferences.tps file and then restart Tableau Desktop.

3. Open a data source, such as the Superstore- Sample data source.

4. From the Data pane, drag a measure (such as Sales) to Colour.

5. Click the colour legend menu arrow, and select Edit Colours.

6. In the Edit Colours dialog box, from the palette drop-down list, select your custom palette.

7. If you want each colour gradation to be defined within a box, select the Stepped Colour check box, and in the Steps text box, type the number of colour steps you want to display in the bar.

8. Click the Advanced button.

9. Select the Start check box, and in the text box, type the low end number you want for the continuum.

10. Click the Apply button to see the result, and make adjustments as needed. The colour will range from high to low intensity (or the reverse) based on the order you specify in the Preferences.tps file. The default for sequential colour palettes in Tableau is to make the high end of the continuum intense and the low end pale, though selecting the Reversed check box will do the opposite.

The third type of colour palette is a diverging colour palette. A diverging palette shows two ranges of values using colour intensity to show the magnitude of the number and the actual colour to show which range the number is from. Diverging palettes are most commonly used to show the difference between positive and negative numbers.

The following is an example of what to add between the preferences tags to add a diverging colour palette. Note that the type attribute is specified as ordered-diverging, which identifies this palette as a diverging palette.

To create a custom diverging colour palette:

1. In the Preferences.tps file, between the preferences tags, paste the following. Be sure to use straight quotation marks, not curly quotation marks, to delimit the name and type of palette.

   <color-palette name="My Diverging Palette" type="ordered-diverging">
<color>#eb912b</color>
<color>#59879b</color>
</color-palette>

2. Save the Preferences.tps file and then restart Tableau Desktop.

3. Open a data source, such as the Superstore - Sample data source.

4. Click the Assign Palette button. The colours in the palette are used in the order they appear in the Preferences file.

If you add a sequential or diverging palette, remember to change the ‘type’ attribute from ‘regular’ to one of the following:

• ordered-sequential
• ordered-diverging

After you save the workbook, the custom colour palette information is embedded in the workbook (for Excel and text file-based workbooks, in the .twbx) and therefore only available for that workbook. This means that colours that are in use are shown for anybody opening the that particular workbook. If they don't have the modified preferences file, they can't use the colour information for any new colour encoding.

To allow new colour encoding using the custom colour palette or to standardise a custom colour palette for the Tableau workbooks in your organisation, you can create the custom colour palette using one of the options above, and then publish it as a Tableau Server data source.

1. On the same computer from which you modified the Preferences.tps file, open Tableau Desktop.

2. Open the Superstore - Sample data source.

3. Right-click a field in the Data pane, and select Default Properties > Colour.

4. In the Edit colours dialog box, associate the field values with the custom colour palette, and then click OK when finished.

5. From the Data menu, select the data source, select Publish to Server, and then complete process to publish the data source.

After publishing the data source to Tableau Server, connect any new workbooks to this data source to use the custom colour palette.

Note that after publishing the workbook with the custom colour palette, that palette will not be visible or available in the Edit Colours dialog box. Authors will not be able to select custom palette for when using web editing in Tableau Server or Tableau Cloud.