How to Save Tableau Graph as Image

Your Tableau graph is ready. You’ve cleaned the data, dragged and dropped your fields, and created a visualization that tells a powerful story. Now, you need to get it out of Tableau and into a presentation, report, or email. This guide will walk you through several easy ways to save your Tableau graph as a high-quality image file like a PNG or JPEG.

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Why Bother Exporting Your Tableau Vizzes?

While Tableau is fantastic for interactive exploration, you'll often need a static image of your work for other business purposes. Being able to quickly save a chart as an image is a fundamental skill that comes in handy for many common tasks:

• Presentations: Dropping a key chart directly into your PowerPoint or Google Slides deck.
• Reports: Including data visualizations in your weekly, monthly, or quarterly reports created in Word or Google Docs.
• Emails: Sharing a quick, specific insight with your team without making them log into Tableau.
• Web Content: Embedding visuals into blog posts or company websites (just like this one!).
• Printing: Creating high-resolution images for physical handouts or posters.

Essentially, exporting allows your data-driven insights to live outside the confines of the Tableau application, making them accessible to a wider audience.

Method 1: The Essential Worksheet Export (For Single Charts)

This is the most direct and common method for saving a single chart (or "worksheet" in Tableau-speak) as an image. It gives you full control over the output format and specifics.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Open your Tableau workbook and navigate to the worksheet that contains the graph you want to save.
2. In the top menu bar, go to Worksheet > Export > Image...
3. The "Export Image" dialog box will appear. Here, you have several options to configure your image.
4. In the "Image Options" section, you can choose what to include in your saved file:

• View: This exports only the chart itself, which is what you'll want most of the time.
• Title: Uncheck this if you don’t want the worksheet title included in the image.
• Caption: Check this if you've added a caption to your worksheet and want it included.
• Legend: Useful for charts with color-coding, sizing, etc. You can choose to position the legend on the right or at the bottom.

1. From the right side dropdown menu, choose your preferred file format using a “save as type” command.
2. Choose a save location, name your file, and click Save.

That's it! Your graph is now saved as an image file in the location you selected.

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Which File Type Should You Choose?

Tableau offers four formats, and your choice depends on how you plan to use the image:

• PNG (Portable Network Graphic): This is the best choice for quality. It supports transparent backgrounds and is ideal for presentations and web pages. If you’re unsure, start with PNG.
• JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group): JPEGs are great when file size is a concern as they compress images more than PNGs. This can result in a slight loss of quality, making them suitable for emails where you want to keep attachments small.
• BMP (Bitmap): This is an older, uncompressed file format. It creates large files and is rarely needed today. You can generally ignore this option.
• GIF (Graphics Interchange Format): It mainly limits the final image to a palette of 256 colors, making it a poorer option compared with the previous file formats listed. It is primarily used today for web animation. A key difference from PNG is the loss of color quality.

Method 2: Exporting an Entire Dashboard

When you have multiple charts and text objects combined in a Tableau dashboard, you can save the entire layout as a single image. The process is nearly identical to exporting a single worksheet.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Navigate to the dashboard tab you wish to save.
2. In the top menu bar, go to Dashboard > Export Image...
3. The same "Export Image" dialog box will appear. Name your file, choose the format (again, PNG is usually best), and click Save.
4. Tableau will save the visible screenshot view portion of the current dashboard into one file.

And with that, you're done and you'll have an image of your whole dashboard!

Method 3: Quick Copy & Paste for Emails and Documents

Sometimes you don't need to save a file to your computer, you just want to quickly drop a chart into an email, a Slack message, or a Word document. For this, the "Copy" function is your best friend. The copy data command will let you paste the content into an external platform to share.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Go to the desired worksheet or dashboard.
2. In the top menu, click Worksheet > Copy > Image... (or Dashboard > Copy Image... if you are on a dashboard).
3. The "Copy Image" option will now appear.
4. Using these settings, you can easily alter the image you copy to best show off what you want a customer to see, such as customizing the color of the bars or how they're formatted. After customization is determined, from copy, click into your external source and use a click paste option to then add the image.

Method 4: Downloading an Image from Tableau Server or Cloud

What if you didn't create the visualization but need to download an image from a published report? You can easily grab images directly from your browser when viewing vizzes on Tableau Server, Tableau Cloud, or Tableau Public.

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Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Open the Tableau visualization in your web browser.
2. Locate the toolbar (at the very bottom left corner, you will see it). In there is an export button that is accompanied by all the options of the possible versions your dashboard can be exported as. You're going to want to have your default set or select “image”. Click that option to save and download a file directly from the page.

This allows anyone with viewing permissions to grab a high-quality snapshot without needing access to the original Tableau workbook file.

Tips for Creating High-Quality, Professional-Looking Images

Simply exporting isn't always enough. A few small adjustments before you save can make the difference between a blurry, confusing chart and a clear, professional one.

1. Fix Cut-Off Charts with "Fit" Options

Has your exported image ever cut off the edges of your chart? This happens because Tableau exports what's currently visible in your window. To fix this, adjust the fit before exporting.

On your worksheet, go to the toolbar and find the "Fit" dropdown menu. Change it from "Standard" to "Fit Entire View" or "Fit Width". This forces the entire visualization to be visible on the canvas, ensuring nothing gets cropped during export.

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2. Improve Readability with Proper Sizing

If the text on your exported chart is too tiny, don't squint in the final image - fix it in Tableau first. Before exporting, right-click any element and choose "Format" to adjust font sizes, colors, and styles for your axis labels, mark labels, and titles. Your saved image will reflect these changes, making it far more readable. To learn even more about how to add or improve labeling, check out our resource here.

3. Export with a Transparent Background

A transparent background lets your chart sit cleanly on top of any background color in your presentation or website.

To do this:

1. Right-click on your chart and go to Format.
2. Navigate to the "Shading" tab in the Format pane.
3. In the ‘Worksheet’ Shading section, set the dropdown menu to None. Be sure to do this for Row and Column Banding as well to ensure that no gray boxes remain in the background.
4. Make sure you export as a PNG, as this is the only format that properly supports transparency.

Final Thoughts

Saving your Tableau graphs as images is a straightforward process that unlocks the ability to share your insights far and wide. Whether you're using the direct "Export" menu in Tableau Desktop, the "Download" button on Tableau Server, or the quick "Copy" command for emails, you have flexible options to get your visuals into any presentation, document, or report.

As you get comfortable exporting static images, you may find your team needs more dynamic ways to interact with data. That’s where we've focused our efforts at Graphed. Instead of manually exporting and sharing charts, we help you connect all your data sources and build real-time, interactive dashboards using simple, natural language. It automates the reporting cycle so your team can always work with live charts instead of static snapshots from last week.