Can You Export in Tableau Public?

So, you're learning the ropes with Tableau Public and created a stunning visualization, but now you’re wondering how to get it out of the app. The question "Can you export in Tableau Public?" is one of the most common hurdles new users face, and the answer isn’t a simple yes or no. This article will clarify exactly what you can and can't export from Tableau Public, provide step-by-step instructions for the available formats, and offer practical workarounds for its biggest limitations.

What’s the Difference Between Tableau Public and Tableau Desktop?

Before diving into the specifics of exporting, it’s helpful to understand why Tableau Public has these limitations in the first place. The main reason comes down to its purpose compared to its paid sibling, Tableau Desktop.

Think of Tableau Public as a free, online portfolio platform for data visualization. It's designed for learning, practicing your skills, and sharing your work with the world. When you save a workbook in Tableau Public, it's not saved to your computer’s hard drive, instead, it is published to your public online profile. This is fantastic for building a gallery of your work but makes it unsuitable for private or sensitive corporate data.

Tableau Desktop, on the other hand, is the professional, subscription-based version. It’s built for business intelligence professionals, analysts, and anyone working with confidential company data. With Tableau Desktop, you can connect to a wider range of data sources (including proprietary databases) and, most importantly, save your workbook files (.twb or .twbx) locally and securely on your own machine, just like you would with a Word document or Excel spreadsheet.

This distinction is key: Public is for sharing openly, while Desktop is for private analysis. This fundamental difference drives the rules around saving and exporting.

Directly Answering the Question: Can You Export in Tableau Public?

Now for the main event. Can you get your hard work out of the Tableau Public application? In short, yes, but not in the way you might expect.

The Big Limitation: You Can’t Save Workbook Files Locally

Let's get the biggest "no" out of the way first. You cannot use the File > Save As function in Tableau Public to save a workbook file (.twbx) directly to your computer. Any time you save your work, you are forced to publish it to the Tableau Public server. This is the application's most significant constraint and the primary reason users in a professional setting upgrade to Tableau Desktop.

So, if you’re looking to create a workbook and email the file to a colleague to edit privately or store it on a local drive for safekeeping, Tableau Public won't let you do that directly.

What You Can Export from Tableau Public

While you can't save the workbook file itself, you have several excellent options for exporting the outputs of your analysis. These are perfect for presentations, reports, and sharing static views of your work.

Images (PNG, JPEG, BMP): You can export any single worksheet as a high-quality image file. This is ideal for dropping a specific chart into a PowerPoint presentation, a blog post, or an email.
Data/Crosstabs (Excel/CSV): Need the underlying numbers from your visualization? Tableau Public allows you to export the data from a worksheet in two ways. You can get the summarized data shown in your chart (a crosstab) or export the full underlying dataset filtered to your current view.
PDFs: You can print an entire dashboard, story, or a single worksheet to a PDF file. This is incredibly useful for creating shareable, printable reports that preserve your formatting and layout.
PowerPoint Slides (.pptx): For business users, this is a lifesaver. You can export a worksheet or dashboard directly into a new PowerPoint presentation, creating an editable slide with your viz embedded as an image.

How to Export Different Formats from Tableau Public

Ready to get your visualizations out into the wild? Here’s a simple, step-by-step guide for each of the main export formats.

Exporting a View as an Image (PNG, JPEG)

Use this when you need a static image of a chart for a presentation or document.

Navigate to the specific worksheet or dashboard you want to capture.
At the top of the application, click on the Worksheet menu item. Note: If you're on a dashboard, this menu item will still say "Worksheet."
Hover your cursor over Export.
From the dropdown menu, select Image...
An "Export Image" dialog box will appear. Here, you can give your image a title, caption, and choose the layout. Click the Save button.
You can now choose your file name, save location, and select the file type (PNG, BMP, or JPEG) from the dropdown.

Exporting Data as a Crosstab to Excel

This method exports the aggregated data you see in your visualization. For example, if you have a bar chart showing Sales by Region, the export will give you a list of regions and their corresponding total sales.

Go to the worksheet containing the data you want to export.
Click on the Worksheet menu at the top.
Hover over Export.
Select Crosstab to Excel.
Tableau Public will immediately prompt you to save an Excel file (.xlsx). Name the file, choose a location, and click Save. Excel will often open automatically with your exported data neatly organized.

Exporting a Dashboard or Story as a PDF

This is your best bet for creating a formal, multi-page report that you can easily share.

Make sure your dashboard or story tab is the active view.
Go to the File menu at the top left.
Select Print to PDF...
A "Print to PDF" dialog box will pop up. This is where you can configure the output. Pay close attention to these settings:
- Include: Choose to print the entire workbook, the active sheet, or selected sheets.
- Paper Size and Orientation: Select a size and orientation (Landscape or Portrait) that best fits your dashboard layout. 'Unspecified' often works well to let Tableau decide based on your dashboard size.
- Scaling: Use the "Scale" option to fit your entire dashboard onto a single page if needed.
Click OK and choose where to save your new PDF document.

The Ultimate Workaround: Download Your Own Workbook

So we've established you can't save your .twbx files locally. But there is a well-known workaround that achieves the same result, albeit with a couple of extra steps. You can publish your workbook to your public profile and then download it right back to your computer.

Here’s how to do it:

Save your workbook to Tableau Public: In the Tableau Public desktop app, go to File > Save to Tableau Public As... You'll be prompted to name your workbook and then log in to your account.
Enable the download option: After you save, Tableau will open the workbook in your web browser. In the upper-right corner of your profile, find your workbook, click the three dots, and select Edit Details... Scroll down and make sure the box next to "Allow workbook and its data to be downloaded by others" is checked. Click Save.
Download your workbook file: Now, view your visualization on your public profile. On the bottom navigation bar of the viz, you'll see a download icon (an arrow pointing down into a tray). Click it.
Select "Tableau Workbook": A menu will pop up. Choose Tableau Workbook from the options. This will download the entire project as a .twbx file to your computer.

This method effectively lets you use the Tableau Public cloud as a temporary bridge to transfer the file to your local machine. You can then open this downloaded .twbx file with either Tableau Public or Tableau Desktop.

Just remember the golden rule: for this to work, your data must be public, even if only for a few minutes. Never use this workaround with sensitive, confidential, or private data. It’s only suitable for learning, personal projects, and publicly available datasets.

Final Thoughts

In summary, Tableau Public offers several valuable export options for sharing static versions of your work, including images, PDFs, and Excel crosstabs. While it prevents you from saving the native workbook file directly to your computer, you can easily use the publish-and-download workaround to get a copy of your .twbx for backup or personal use.

Learning tools like Tableau is a fantastic skill, but sometimes you just need to connect your live data sources and get answers fast without complex configurations or public sharing limitations. That's why we built Graphed. We turn hours of analytics work into a simple conversation by connecting directly to platforms like Google Analytics, Shopify, and HubSpot. You can just ask for "a sales pipeline report from Salesforce showing conversion rates by rep" and get a real-time, shareable dashboard instantly, removing the friction between your data and the decisions you need to make.