Tableau Desktop Cookbook

Chapter 8. Square

Using the Square option on the Marks card, you can create different types of charts, including previously mentioned highlight tables (Recipe 4.3). This chapter will look at several charts covering the Square mark type, which in some instances means rectangles.

8.1 Treemaps

One type of chart using the Square mark type is a treemap. A treemap can be used to display part-to-whole or hierarchical relationships using rectangles or squares as the area of the measure.

Problem

You want to show the part-to-whole relationship between categories for sales.

Solution

1. 

   Drag Sales to Size (1) and Category to Color (2):

2. 

   To distinguish between the different squares, I advise adding labels. You will need to drag the same two fields from the tables to the Label shelf. The order you drag the fields onto the Marks card depends on whether you want category or sales to appear on the label first. In this example, we put category (1) and then sales (2) onto Label:

Editing Labels

If the label is still incorrect, you can manually edit it by clicking the Label property. This will bring up a box for you to edit different elements of the label. If you select the three dots next to the Text option, you can specifically edit what appears on the label:

Your final view should ...