3 Replies Latest reply on Mar 16, 2017 3:15 PM by Yuriy Fal

    different line styles per gender (e.g. male, bold line; female, dotted line) on dual axis

    Gareth Whiteley
    Gareth Whiteley Mar 8, 2017 1:34 AM

      I have a dual axis line graph. The x-axis is a year dimension, and the y-axis a % measure. One of the two measures is fixed across the entire dataset (essentially it shows the benchmark). This needs to remain as such. The other measure is filterable and thus changes depending upon what the user selects. Each time the user changes or selects an additional value (e.g. adds another school) from the multiple value dropdown, a new line appears. Good, good. However, I want to be able to add a new level of detail to this worksheet, which would split each of those school line grpahs into two different lines (e.g. by gender). I can do this, based on colour, but it looks ugly as **** as soon as the user adds multiple schools from the drop down. I would like to be able to colour each school one colour, but draw different line styles per gender (e.g., male, bold line; female, dotted line). Can anyone advise? Thanks in advance.

        • 1. Re: different line styles per gender (e.g. male, bold line; female, dotted line) on dual axis
          lenaic.ridinger Mar 16, 2017 6:18 AM (in response to Gareth Whiteley)

          Hi Gareth Whiteley,

           

          You should be able to use the Formatting option, at the left of your sheet.

          Could you please share your workbook (.twbx) so I can help you with that?

           

          Cheers,

           

          ----------

          Lénaïc RIÉDINGER, Global Community Engineer Tableau

          Tableau Community Forums | Knowledge Base

          If you see an Helpful or Correct response, please mark it thanks to the buttons below the targeted post!

          • 2. Re: different line styles per gender (e.g. male, bold line; female, dotted line) on dual axis
            Amanda Luthy
            Amanda Luthy Employee Mar 16, 2017 2:47 PM (in response to Gareth Whiteley)

            Hey Gareth,

            There currently is no way to (easily) format lines in a chart. Though, I would encourage you to head over to the Ideas forum and upvote this idea. 

             

            You also might want to read through this blog post by Jonathan Drummey wherein he explores three ways to get Tableau to do what you want.

             

            If that doesn't do it, I have a few possible solutions that might work for you, though none of them are different line styles:

             

            1. Create a calculated field that is "school + ***". Add that to Color property on the Marks card. Manually update the colors so that each school has the same color with a particular *** being a darker or lighter shade.

             

            2. Add *** to the Detail property on the Marks card. This will create twice as many lines, but not more colors. The downside of this is you wouldn't be able to visually differentiate between sexes at a glance unless you add a label. Of course by hovering you could easily see which is which.

             

            3. Add *** to the Size property on the Marks card. The result of this will be twice as many lines, but easily differentiated because one would be thick and the other thin. The major downside of this, of course, is that one of the sexes now appears less prominently than the other and could be easily overlooked.

             

            I hope that helps!

            • 3. Re: different line styles per gender (e.g. male, bold line; female, dotted line) on dual axis
              Yuriy Fal
              Yuriy Fal Ambassador Mar 16, 2017 3:15 PM (in response to Gareth Whiteley)

              Hi Gareth,

               

              Different line styles is not an option in Tableau

              (and I mean the lines connecting dots on a line chart).

               

              Typically one would opt to use color and / or size

              (line thickness) to differentiate on a view.

              Highlighting could help, too.

               

              So you may want to use Gender (blue pill)

              on Color together with your Schools (blue pill).

              Just place both pills on Details and use Color for both.

               

              Alternatively, you may want to make a small multiples

              using your School and Gender dimensions as a grid.

               

              Yours,

              Yuri