Innovative Tableau

Chapter 5. Transparent Sheets

As of Tableau Desktop 2018.3, you can make the backgrounds of dashboard worksheets transparent. You have been able to use a combination of floating and tiled objects since all the way back to Tableau version 8, which allows you to create what I call interactive infographics by floating interactive elements over a static background image.

The ability to make the backgrounds of floating objects transparent provides a flexibility that leads to significantly more possibilities. Just to name a few, you can do the following:

• Improve the design of interactive infographics by integrating the background image with the sheet in the foreground

• Place charts in better spatial context of each other

• Go beyond a dual axis by layering additional worksheets on top of each other

This chapter shows you how to make the backgrounds of worksheets transparent in Tableau.

How to Make Worksheet Backgrounds Transparent

For this example, suppose that we want to make the following bar chart more engaging by adding a custom image behind it:

First, let’s start a new dashboard and add a tiled Image object so that it fills the entire dashboard:

Next, we place the worksheet containing my bar chart on the dashboard as a floating object:

This infographic is OK. We have a ...