How to Make a Text Table in Tableau

Building a chart in Tableau can give you immediate visual insights, but sometimes you just need to see the raw numbers in a clean, organized grid. That's where the text table comes in. This guide will walk you through how to create, format, and enhance text tables in Tableau, turning you from a beginner into a pro at presenting detailed data.

What Exactly is a Text Table?

A text table, also known as a crosstab or data grid, is essentially a spreadsheet-style view of your data built within Tableau. While charts like bars and lines are excellent for showing trends and comparisons at a glance, text tables serve a different purpose. They are designed to display precise, granular information in a structured row-and-column format.

Think of it as the detailed report that complements your high-level visual dashboard. It's the perfect tool for when a stakeholder asks, "This is a great summary, but can I see the exact numbers behind this?" Text tables are fundamental for several reasons:

• Precision: They show the exact values of your measures, which is essential for financial reporting, detailed performance analysis, or any situation where accuracy to the last digit matters.
• Detail: They allow you to look up specific individual items within a large dataset, like the sales figures for a single product on a specific date.
• Clarity: A well-organized table is simple to read and understand, making it accessible to team members who may not be comfortable interpreting complex charts.

Building Your First Text Table: A Step-by-Step Guide

Let's build a text table from scratch using Tableau's sample "Superstore" dataset. This process is straightforward and forms the foundation for more advanced tables.

Step 1: Open a New Worksheet and Connect Your Data

First, open Tableau and connect to the Sample - Superstore data source that comes included. Once your data is loaded, you’ll be on a blank worksheet. On the left side, you'll see your Dimensions (qualitative data like names, dates, and categories) and your Measures (quantitative, numerical data like sales, profit, and quantity).

Step 2: Add Dimensions to Rows

Dimensions define the rows of your table. Start by dragging the Category dimension from the Data pane over to the Rows shelf. You'll see Tableau create three rows: 'Furniture', 'Office Supplies', and 'Technology'.

To add more detail, drag the Sub-Category dimension and drop it to the right of Category on the Rows shelf. Now your table has a hierarchical structure, with each category broken down into its respective sub-categories.

Step 3: Add Dimensions to Columns

Next, let's create our columns. Columns are also defined by dimensions. Drag the Order Date dimension from the data pane over to the Columns shelf. By default, Tableau will likely aggregate this to the YEAR level.

You can easily change the date granularity. Click the little '+' icon on the YEAR(Order Date) pill in the Columns shelf to expand it to QUARTER. Click it again to expand to MONTH. This drills down into your data, creating more columns for each time period.

Step 4: Bring in Your Measures

With our rows and columns set up, it's time to populate the table with data. Decide which number you want to see at the intersection of each row and column. Let's start with sales.

Drag the Sales measure from the Data pane and drop it onto the Text square on the Marks Card. Instantly, your table fills with the sum of sales for each sub-category and time period. The "Abc" placeholders are now replaced with your numerical data.

Congratulations, you’ve just built your first text table!

Customizing and Formatting Your Text Table

A basic table is useful, but a well-formatted table is professional and much easier to read. Tableau offers extensive formatting options to make your table shine.

Adjusting Headers and Shading

Messy alignment and a lack of visual distinction can make a table hard to scan. To fix this, right-click on any of the headers (like 'Category' or '2022') and select Format. The Format pane will appear on the left.

• Under Header, you can change the font, size, color, and alignment for your column and row labels. A common practice is to make headers bold and centered.
• Under Pane, you can format the text within the data cells themselves.
• Use Shading to add subtle background colors to headers or alternate rows to improve readability, a technique known as "banding."

Adding Totals and Subtotals

No table is complete without totals. Go to the main menu at the top and click Analysis > Totals. Here you have several powerful options:

• Show Row Grand Totals: Adds a column on the far right that sums up all values in each row.
• Show Column Grand Totals: Adds a row at the bottom that sums up all values in each column.
• Add All Subtotals: If you have nested dimensions (like we do with Category and Sub-Category), this will add a subtotal for each main category. This is incredibly useful for seeing both the details and the bigger picture in one view.

Using Color to Highlight Key Data

Numbers are great, but color provides instant context. This is where text tables can start to blend with heatmaps. Drag the Profit measure onto the Color square on the Marks Card. Tableau will color the background of each cell based on its profit value - for instance, dark blue for high profit and shades of orange for losses.

This simple move transforms your table from a wall of numbers into a powerful analytical tool. Now, you can instantly spot which sub-categories are losing money in certain quarters without having to read a single number.

Advanced Text Table Techniques

Once you've mastered the basics, you can start incorporating more advanced features to make your tables even more dynamic and insightful.

Adding Multiple Measures

What if you want to see Sales, Profit, and Quantity all in the same table? All you need to do is drag your additional measures onto the table. When you drag Profit from the Data Pane and drop it next to the SUM(Sales) values already in the table, Tableau automatically modifies your view.

It places the Measure Names dimension on the Columns shelf and the Measure Values field onto Text on the Marks card. This is Tableau's method for displaying multiple measures side-by-side. You can now add or remove measures from the 'Measure Values' card to control what appears in the table.

Creating Calculated Fields

Calculated fields let you create new metrics from your existing data. For example, let's calculate the profit ratio.

1. Right-click anywhere in the Data pane and select Create Calculated Field.
2. Name it "Profit Ratio".
3. Enter the formula: `` SUM([Profit]) / SUM([Sales])
4. Click OK.

You now have a new measure called Profit Ratio. Drag this into your table just as you would any other measure to see the profitability of each sub-category.

Applying Conditional Formatting

Let's use a calculated field to add clear, conditional indicators. Imagine you want to tag sub-categories as 'Profitable' or 'Unprofitable' based on their overall performance.

1. Create a new calculated field named 'Profit Status'.
2. Enter this simple IF/THEN statement: `` IF SUM([Profit]) > 0 THEN "Profitable" ELSE "Unprofitable" END
3. Drag this new Profit Status dimension onto the Color shelf.

Now, every number in profitable rows will be one color (e.g., blue), and every number in unprofitable rows will be another (e.g., red). This provides a very clear visual cue that's impossible to miss.

Best Practices: When (and When Not) to Use a Text Table

Text tables are a workhorse, but they're not always the right tool for the job. Knowing when to use one is key.

Use a text table when:

• Precision is required: Finance and accounting teams often need exact figures, not visual estimations from a bar chart.
• You need to look up individual values: A table is perfect for allowing users to find a specific piece of information quickly.
• It's used as a supplementary view: A text table works beautifully in a dashboard when used as a "details-on-demand" component. Users can click a category in a pie chart and see the underlying data appear in an adjacent table.

Avoid a text table when:

• You're showing trends over time: A line chart is almost always better at showing how a metric changes over time.
• You're comparing magnitudes: A bar chart is far more effective for helping the human eye quickly compare the sizes of different categories.
• The dataset is massive: Forcing a user to scroll through hundreds of rows and columns creates information overload. In these cases, use totals, aggregations, or visual charts to summarize the data first.

Final Thoughts

Mastering text tables is a fundamental skill for any Tableau user. They provide a foundation for detailed analysis, allowing you to present precise data in a manner that's easy to read and digest. By building from a basic grid to a rich, conditionally formatted report, you can deliver deep insights that complement your visual dashboards.

The manual process of opening a tool, connecting data, and dragging and dropping fields is powerful, but sometimes you just need an answer fast. We built Graphed to solve for exactly that moment. It connects to your marketing and sales data sources and lets you build reports and tables by just describing what you need in plain English - like asking, "Show me a table of sales and profit by sub-category for last quarter." All the data wrangling and chart building happens automatically, turning hours of work into minutes.