Chapter 21. 3 Ways to Use Dual-Axis Combination Charts: Tip 3
Improving the Design of a Line Graph
In “Three Ways to Make Lovely Line Graphs in Tableau,” Chapter 74 of Practical Tableau (O’Reilly, 2018), I provide a few recommendations for making traditional line graphs more engaging in Tableau. One of those approaches involves a dual-axis combination chart. This chapter shows you how it’s done.
Suppose you have a line graph showing a sales-by-month trend:
Now, let’s put the Sales measure on the right axis, synchronize the axes, and change the mark type for the second axis to Area:
At this point, we have a dual-axis combination chart with sales by month as a line graph, and sales by month as an area chart.
To finalize the view, we hide the right axis and reduce the opacity of the area to 10%:
You can use the second axis for only one purpose at a time, but if you are not using it for one of the applications outlined in the previous two chapters (or anything else), this third application can be an easy way to enhance your traditional line graphs. You can use this same dual-axis technique to format line markers by using a mark type of Circle on the second axis. Because the second ...
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