You can animate visualizations to better highlight changing patterns in your data, reveal spikes and outliers, and see how the data points cluster and separate.
Animations visually transition between filter, sort, zoom settings, different pages, and changes to filter, parameter, and set actions. As the visualizations animate in response to these changes, viewers can more clearly see how data differs, helping them make better-informed decisions.
When you author the animations, you can choose between two different styles: simultaneous or sequential.
Simultaneous animations: The default simultaneous animations are faster and work well while showing value changes in simpler charts and dashboards.
Sequential animations: Sequential animations take more time but make complex changes clearer by presenting them step-by-step.
How to animate visualizations in the workbook?
- Choose Format > Animations.
- If you want to animate each sheet, under Workbook Default, click On. Then perform the following:
- For Duration, choose a preset, or you can specify a custom duration of up to 10 seconds.
- For Style, choose Simultaneous to play all the animations at once or Sequential to fade out marks, move and sort, and then fade them in.
- For overriding workbook defaults for a particular sheet, change the settings under Selected Sheet.
How to reset animation settings for the workbook?
You can also reset animations to return an entire workbook to the default animation settings.
- Go to Format > Animations.
- At the bottom of the Animations pane, click on Reset All.
How to completely disable all animations?
If you find animations distracting while viewing visualizations, you can completely disable them, so they never play.
- In Tableau Desktop, go to Help > Settings and Performance, and deselect Enable Animations.
- In Tableau Online or Tableau Server, click on your profile image or initials in the top right corner of the browser, and then choose My Account Settings. Then scroll down to the bottom of the page, deselect Enable animations, and click on Save Changes.
Edit Axes:
Adding a continuous field (a field with a green background) to the Columns or Rows shelf adds an axis to the view. An axis shows the data points that lie within a range of values. For each axis, you can also specify the range, scale, and tick mark properties.
Double-click on an axis to open the Edit Axis dialog box and change the axis configuration and formatting.
How to edit an axis range?
To edit an axis range, double-click on the axis that you want to edit.
When you select the axis, the marks associated with that axis are not selected.
For selecting the marks associated with the axis, right-click the axis and select Select Marks. You can also select each mark individually.
Hide and reshow axes and headers:
If you have any hidden axis or a header in the view, you can display it again from its related field.
To hide an axis:
Right-click the axis in the view, and then clear the checkmark next to the Show Header option.
To show a previously hidden axis:
Right-click the continuous field in the view associated with the axis you want to show, click its drop-down menu, and then click Show Header.
To hide a header:
Right-click a header in the view, and then clear the checkmark next to the Show Header option.
To show previously hidden header:
Right-click the discrete field in the view associated with headers that you want to show, click its drop-down menu, and then click Show Header.
How to change an axis range?
You can limit the axis range for focusing the view on certain data points.
For instance, assume your view shows sales over four years. The automatic axis may show a range from 0 to $750,000. If the sales never go below $470,000, you can adjust the axis range to start at $470,000 to focus on where the data points lie.
For changing an axis range:
- Double-click on the axis you want to edit. You can also right-click on the axis and then select Edit Axis.
- In the dialog box Edit Axis, select one of the below options:
- Automatic. It automatically bases the axis range on the data used in the view.
- Uniform axis range for all rows/columns. It sets the axis range uniformly to the maximum data range for all panes in the view.
- Independent axis ranges for each row/column. It makes the axis range independent, and it varies for each pane in the view, depending on the data range in each pane.
- Fixed. It specifies to start and/or end the axis at a specific value. You can also fix both ends of the axis or only one end. When you fix both ends of an axis, the axis range is determined by your specific values. When you fix only one end of an axis, you must set the other axis as automatic, uniform, or independent.
- You can specify whether to include zero. When you clear the check box Include zero, the axis range adjusts to show only the range of values in the data.
- Click OK.
How to change the axis scale to reversed or logarithmic?
Axis scale options include Reversed and Logarithmic.
When you select the option Logarithmic, you can then specify Positive or Symmetric. Symmetric displays the data that contains positive, 0, or negative values on a log scale axis and is used to visualize large negative values on a logarithmic scale, as well as large positive values, or both.
To change the scale of an axis:
- Double-click on the axis you want to edit. You can also right-click the axis and then select Edit Axis.
- In the Edit Axis dialog box, select Reversed or Logarithmic for the axis scale on the General tab.
The option of choosing Symmetric or Positive is only available when the axis range extends outside of the closed interval [-10, 10].
Logarithmic: It selects Positive or Symmetric for the log scale. The Symmetric option displays the data that contains positive, 0, and negative values on a log scale axis. The tick marks are drawn at the powers of ten by default, but you can specify any base that is greater than 1.
- Click on the Tick Marks tab and select one of the below options:
- Automatic: the major tick marks are drawn at powers of 10.
- Fixed: the major tick marks are drawn at a specified exponent. Type a number into the Powers of the text box.
- None: major tick marks are not shown.
- When finished, click on, OK.
You can reverse the axis by selecting Reverse in the Scale area on the Edit Axis dialog box’s General tab.
How to change the appearance of an axis?
Every axis has a title that is generated automatically based on the fields in the view. You can also specify a custom axis title and add a subtitle using the Edit Axis dialog box. You can also specify the axis’s scale, such as whether to use a logarithmic scale or whether to reverse the axis.
To change the appearance of an axis:
- Right-click on the axis that you want to edit and select Edit Axis.
- In the dialog box Edit Axis, type a new title in the Title text box.
- For adding a custom subtitle, clear the Automatic check box.
- For changing the scale of the axis, select one of the below options:
- Reversed: select this option to reverse the order of values on the axis.
- Logarithmic: select this option to use a logarithmic scale on the axis.
- Click OK.
How to format tick marks?
You can also specify how often the tick marks are displayed along the axis. Tableau allows for modification of both the Major and Minor tick marks. The Major tick marks are accompanied by unit labels, while the Minor tick marks represent smaller increments between the major marks. You can also choose to use automatic or fixed tick marks or have none at all.
To format tick marks:
- Right-click the axis you want to edit and select Edit Axis.
- In the dialog box Edit Axis, select the tab Tick Marks.
- For both the Major tick marks and Minor tick marks, select any one of the below options:
- Automatic: select this option to automatically show tick marks based on the data in the view.
- Fixed: select this option to specify how often the tick mark should display and the starting value.
- None: select this option to hide the tick marks completely.
- Click OK.
