Tableau Desktop and Web Authoring Help

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.

The following is an example of what to add between the preferences tags to add a categorical color palette. Note that the type attribute is specified as regular, which identifies this palette as a categorical palette.

To create a custom categorical color palette:

1. In the Preferences.tps file, between the "preferences" tags, paste the following. Be sure to use straight quotation marks, not curly quotation marks, to delimit the palette's name and type.

   <color-palette name="My Categorical Palette" type="regular">
<color>#eb912b</color>
<color>#7099a5</color>
<color>#c71f34</color>
<color>#1d437d</color>
<color>#e8762b</color>
<color>#5b6591</color>
<color>#59879b</color>
</color-palette>

2. Save the Preferences.tps file and then restart Tableau Desktop.

3. Open a data source, such as the Superstore - Sample data source.

4. From the Data pane, drag a discrete dimension, such as Region, to Color.

5. Click the color legend menu arrow and select Edit Colors.

6. In the Edit Colors dialog box, from the palette drop-down list, select your new custom palette.

7. Click the Assign Palette button to assign the custom colors to each respective field.

8. Click OK.

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

The following is an example of what to add between the preferences tags to add a sequential color palette. Note that the type attribute is specified as ordered-sequential, which identifies this palette as a sequential palette. Also, for sequential palettes you must specify at least two variants of the color in the sequential color range.

To create a custom sequential color palette:

1. In the Preferences.tps file, between the preferences tags, paste the following. Be sure to use straight quotation marks, not curly quotation marks, to delimit the palette's name and type.

   <color-palette name="My Sequential Palette" type="ordered-sequential">
<color>#eb912b</color>
<color>#eb9c42</color>
<color>#ebad67</color>
<color>#eabb86</color>
<color>#eacba8</color>
<color>#ebd8c2</color>
</color-palette>

2. Save the Preferences.tps file and then restart Tableau Desktop.

3. Open a data source, such as the Superstore- Sample data source.

4. From the Data pane, drag a measure (such as Sales) to Color.

5. Click the color legend menu arrow, and select Edit Colors.

6. In the Edit Colors dialog box, from the palette drop-down list, select your custom palette.

7. If you want each color gradation to be defined within a box, select the Stepped Color check box, and in the Steps text box, type the number of color steps you want to display in the bar.

8. Click the Advanced button.

9. Select the Start check box, and in the text box, type the low end number you want for the continuum.

10. Click the Apply button to see the result, and make adjustments as needed. The color will range from high to low intensity (or the reverse) based on the order you specify in the Preferences.tps file. The default for sequential color palettes in Tableau is to make the high end of the continuum intense and the low end pale, though selecting the Reversed check box will do the opposite.

The third type of color palette is a diverging color palette. A diverging palette shows two ranges of values using color intensity to show the magnitude of the number and the actual color to show which range the number is from. Diverging palettes are most commonly used to show the difference between positive and negative numbers.

The following is an example of what to add between the preferences tags to add a diverging color palette. Note that the type attribute is specified as ordered-diverging, which identifies this palette as a diverging palette.

To create a custom diverging color palette:

1. In the Preferences.tps file, between the preferences tags, paste the following. Be sure to use straight quotation marks, not curly quotation marks, to delimit the palette's name and type.

   <color-palette name="My Diverging Palette" type="ordered-diverging">
<color>#eb912b</color>
<color>#59879b</color>
</color-palette>

2. Save the Preferences.tps file and then restart Tableau Desktop.

3. Open a data source, such as the Superstore - Sample data source.

4. Click the Assign Palette button. The colors in the palette are used in the order they appear in the Preferences file.

If you add a sequential or diverging palette, remember to change the "type" attribute from "regular" to one of the following:

• ordered-sequential
• ordered-diverging

After you save the workbook, the custom color palette information is embedded in the workbook (for Excel and text file-based workbooks, in the .twbx) and therefore only available for that workbook. This means that colors that are in use are shown for anybody opening the that particular workbook. If they don't have the modified preferences file, they can't use the color information for any new color encoding.

To allow new color encoding using the custom color palette or to standardize a custom color palette for the Tableau workbooks in your organization, you can create the custom color palette using one of the options above, and then publish it as a Tableau Server data source.

1. On the same computer from which you modified the Preferences.tps file, open Tableau Desktop.

2. Open the Superstore - Sample data source.

3. Right-click a field in the Data pane, and select Default Properties > Color.

4. In the Edit Colors dialog box, associate the field values with the custom color palette, and then click OK when finished.

5. From the Data menu, select the data source, select Publish to Server, and then complete process to publish the data source.

After publishing the data source to Tableau Server, connect any new workbooks to this data source to use the custom color palette.

Note that after publishing the workbook with the custom color palette, that palette will not be visible or available in the Edit Colors dialog box. Authors will not be able to select custom palette for when using web editing in Tableau Server or Tableau Cloud.