Tableau Desktop and Web Authoring Help

Tableau Desktop comes installed with many predesigned color palettes that are effective for visualizing data. You also have the option to create and use your own custom color palettes, which can be useful for branding purposes. In Tableau version 2025.3 or later, you can create a custom color palette directly in the flow of your work in Tableau Desktop. In earlier versions of Tableau Desktop, you can create a custom color palette by modifying the preferences.tps file that comes installed with your version of Tableau.

Tableau offers three types of color palettes:

Categorical: For discrete fields without inherent order (for example, product names and categories), assigning a unique color to each item.

Diverging: For continuous fields, uses two contrasting colors that radiate from a neutral midpoint (for example, white or light gray) to display quantitative data with positive and negative values, or deviations from a baseline. Color intensity signifies magnitude.

Sequential: For continuous fields, uses a single color with varying intensity to represent a range of quantitative values, ideal for data with a natural progression (for example, low to high, all positive or all negative).

Create a custom color palette directly in a Tableau workbook (Tableau version 2025.3 and later)

In Tableau Desktop, custom color palettes can be created in a couple of ways. The most frequently used methods are through the Color encoding box on the Marks card or through the Format workbook menu, accessed through the toolbar.

Access custom color palettes through Color on the Marks card

On a Tableau worksheet, drag and drop a field onto Color on the Marks card.

Select Color on the Marks card.

Select Edit Colors...

In the Edit Colors dialog, expand the color palette dropdown, scroll to the bottom, and select Create Custom Palette.

Create a categorical custom color palette

A categorical color palette offers several distinct colors that can be assigned to discrete dimensions. For instance, when a discrete dimension such as Region is placed on the Color card, Tableau applies a categorical color legend.

1. Name the custom color palette.

2. Choose if you want to create a palette based on a preloaded palette or none.

3. Select Paste Swatches to enter multiple hex codes or RGB values or select Add Swatch to add colors individually.
   

From the Add Swatch dialog, you can:

• Select colors from the Dark or Light Palettes

• Enter a hex code

• Select the plus sign to add colors from the system's color picker
  
  
  

From the color picker dialog, you can:

• Enter a hex code

• Enter Red/Green/Blue (RBG) and Hue/Saturation/Value (HSV) values

• Select a color from the color picker spectrum
  
  

4. Select OK.

5. Continue adding swatches until you have built your custom color palette and save your work.

When you navigate to the color encoding box on the Marks card, you can assign colors from your custom color palette to fields on your visualization.

Create a sequential custom color palette

A sequential palette shows a single color, varying in intensity. You must specify at least the two end colors in the sequential color range. Tableau extrapolates the shades in between.

1. Name the custom color palette.

2. Choose if you want to create a palette based on a preloaded palette or none.

3. Enter a hex code (without the # sign) in the hex code field, select an empty swatch to use the color picker, or select Paste Swatches to enter multiple hex codes or RGB values.

Create a diverging custom color palette

A diverging palette combines two sequential palettes, sharing a central color but varying at their extremes. This palette type employs color intensity (lightness or darkness) to indicate numerical magnitude, while the specific hue (such as orange or blue) denotes the value's range. Diverging palettes are frequently used to illustrate differences between positive and negative values.

1. Name the custom color palette.

2. Choose if you want to create a custom palette based on a preloaded palette or none.

3. Enter a hex code (without the # sign) in the hex code field, select an empty swatch to use the color picker, or select Paste Swatches to enter multiple hex codes or RGB values.

Paste swatches

Paste in several hex codes or RGB values, separated by commas, to add several swatches at a time.

Access custom color palettes through the format menu

1. On the Format menu, select Workbook.

2. The Format Workbook pane replaces the Data pane on the left and provides a series of dropdown lists where you can change the fonts, line style, and color palettes in a workbook.

3. Scroll to Color Palettes and expand the menu next to the color palette type you'd like to add: Categorical, Diverging, or Sequential.
   
   

4. Scroll through all the available color palettes to the bottom and select Create Custom Palette.

Delete or modify a custom color palette

1. On a Tableau worksheet, select Color on the Marks card.

2. Select Edit Colors...

3. In the Edit Colors dialog, expand the color palette dropdown and select the palette you'd like to delete or modify.

4. For a categorical palette, select the pencil icon to modify the palette, or select the trash can icon to delete the palette.
   For a diverging or sequential palette, expand the menu to the right of the selected palette and then select Edit Custom Palette or Delete Palette.
   
   
   
   
   

Caution: You can't restore a deleted custom color palette. They are stored in the preferences file for Tableau. If you delete a custom color palette within Tableau Desktop, it is also deleted from the preferences file.

5. In the Edit Custom Palette dialog, you can change a color by selecting a swatch. To remove a color from the palette, select the X that appears when hovering over it.
   
   
   
   

Create a custom color palette by modifying the preferences file (Tableau Desktop 2025.2 and earlier)

In Tableau Desktop 2025.2 and earlier versions, you can create and use your own custom color palettes by modifying the Preferences.tps file that comes with Tableau.

When you modify Preferences.tps to add colors, use the standard HTML format for the new colors (hex code #RRGGBB or Red Green Blue format). When you save the workbook and restart Tableau Desktop, the color palette names you added to Preferences.tps appear in the Select Color Palette drop down list (Edit Color dialog). You can use a custom palette like you would any other.

About the preferences file

You can add as many custom palettes as you like to your Preferences.tps file, each with as many colors as you want. Although there isn’t a limit to how many colors can be added to each custom palette, the Edit colors dialog box only shows 20 colors. If you need to manually assign more than 20 colors to data items, you may want to create several custom palettes with 20 or fewer colors in each palette.

When you modify Preferences.tps to add colors, use the standard HTML format for the new colors (hex code #RRGGBB or Red Green Blue format). When you save the workbook and restart Tableau Desktop, the color palette names you added to Preferences.tps appear in the Select Color Palette drop-down list (Edit Color dialog). You can use a custom palette like you would any other.

Note: When you edit your Preferences.tps file, be sure to use straight quotation marks (' ' or " ") to delimit the palette name and type, not curly quotation marks (“ ” or ‘ ’).

Edit the preferences file

The Preferences.tps file is located in the My Tableau Repository folder that is created when you install Tableau Desktop, likely located in Documents. The preferences file is a basic XML file that you can open in a text editor to modify. An unedited preferences file looks like this:

To edit your preferences file:

1. Go to the My Tableau Repository folder in your Documents directory, and open the Preferences.tps file with a text editor.
2. Between the opening and closing workbook tags, insert opening and closing preferences tags so that it looks like this:

   <?xml version='1.0'?>
   <workbook>
   <preferences>
   </preferences>
   </workbook>

   Note: If your Preferences.tps file already has preferences tags, you don't need to add them again.

3. Follow one of the next procedures to create a custom color palette by inserting color-palette tags between the preferences tags. For example:

   <?xml version='1.0'?>	
   <workbook>
   <preferences> 
   <color-palette name="MyColors" type="regular">
   <color>#1e4c56</color>
   <color>#cba94b</color>
   </color-palette>
   </preferences>
   </workbook>

   Color palettes can be categorical (type="regular"), sequential (type="ordered-sequential"), or diverging (type="ordered-diverging").

4. To add more palettes, insert another set of color-palette tags.

   <?xml version='1.0'?>	
   <workbook>
   <preferences> 
   <color-palette name="MyColors" type="regular">
   <color>#1e4c56</color>
   <color>#cba94b</color>
   </color-palette>
   <color-palette name="MoreColors" type="regular">
   <color>#ffe96f</color>
   <color>#799a0d</color>
   </color-palette>
   </preferences>
   </workbook>

5. You must restart Tableau Desktop to see the new color palettes.

Create a categorical palette

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

In the preferences file, a categorical palette is type="regular".

Create a sequential palette

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

You must specify at least the two end colors in the sequential color range. Tableau will extrapolate the shades in between.

Create a diverging color palette

The third type of color palette is a diverging color palette. Instead of a gradient from one extreme to the other, a diverging palette is like two sequential palettes that share a color in the middle but have different extremes. This type of palette shows two ranges of values using color intensity (how dark or light) to show the magnitude of the number and the actual color (orange or blue) to show which range the number is from. Diverging palettes are most commonly used to show the difference between positive and negative numbers.

Use discontinued (classic) color palettes

In version 10.0, Tableau created new color palettes, updated some existing ones (such as Tableau 10 and Tableau 20), and discontinued others. If you want to keep using a color palette that was discontinued, you can edit your Preferences.tps file to add the hex values for the palette. You can add as many color palettes as you like.