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Improved Excel crosstab export

Tableau 2020.3 finally lets you export crosstabs to Excel while keeping your formatting, so Excel-loving users get a much happier time pulling data out.

Tim Ngwena •12 August 2020 •1 min read •4 min watch •13K

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Tableau 2020.3 adds native Excel crosstab export from Web Authoring, Tableau Online and Server, where previously only CSV was available.
The Excel export preserves much more of the Tableau layout and formatting, including merged fields, than the old CSV route.
When you trigger a crosstab export you're prompted to choose which specific sheet to export from, a refinement from the 2020.2 release.
Some formatting such as conditional formatting on figures can still be lost in the export.
Web editing offers limited formatting control, so heavy formatting like header styling is still best handled in Tableau Desktop.

0:00In 2020.3, Tableau have enhanced the

0:06ability to export cross tabs from Web

0:09Authoring or

0:09from Tableau Online or Tableau Server to

0:12the Excel format.

0:14Previously, you could only do this to the

0:16CSV format.

0:17And of course, most people open that in

0:19Excel and so therefore thought Excel export

0:21was

0:21already available.

0:22But the difference here is that with Excel

0:24export, we actually maintain and preserve

0:27some of the formatting that we get in Table

0:29au a little bit better.

0:30Okay, that's a long winded explanation for

0:33this feature.

0:34Let's just try it out now and I'll show you

0:36how it works.

0:37Right now you can see here I'm on Tableau

0:38Online.

0:39I've got my Superstore workbook.

0:41And the first thing I'm going to do is just

0:43go to the overview.

0:44And I'm essentially going to export the

0:46cross tab for one of these views.

0:48Now in the previous release, 2020.2, they

0:51actually improve the ability to do cross

0:53tab

0:54exports.

0:55You're required to select the specific

0:57sheet that you want this to come from.

0:59Instead when you hit the cross tab, it

1:00actually asks you which seat you'd like to

1:02export information

1:03from.

1:04And so I can actually choose the map in

1:06this case.

1:07You can now see the new feature here, which

1:09is Excel rather than CSV.

1:11And in this particular case, because I'm

1:13going from a map to a table, you'll see

1:15that it's

1:15actually just going to export this.

1:17I'm going to write over the previous

1:18version I did to test this.

1:20We're going to replace it.

1:22And then we're going to open it.

1:23And you'll see here that it's basically

1:25tried to format this in the most beautiful

1:27way that

1:27you can in Excel, which is this rather

1:29spacious table to say the least.

1:32Okay.

1:33So I'm going to close this tab and we're

1:34going to try the same thing again.

1:35This time I'm going to try on an actual

1:37table that we've built in Tableau.

1:39So let's go back to Superstore.

1:42And this time we're going to go to this

1:44what if forecast.

1:45Now the thing I want you to bear in mind is

1:47how this table is laid out.

1:49And I'd ideally like to export it like this

1:52in Excel.

1:53And so we're going to do the same thing

1:54again.

1:55Let's hit download, hit the crosstab.

1:59There's only one sheet to export here.

2:00So that's all we're going to use.

2:02Excel is the default option that's ticked

2:04here.

2:04Click download.

2:06Now it's going to overwrite the existing

2:08one because I've already tried this once in

2:10my

2:10practice run.

2:11And then if I hit the what if forecast

2:13sheet and I open that, you'll notice that

2:16it's done

2:16a really good job of actually merging some

2:19of the fields.

2:20And this has pretty much preserved the

2:22exact same layout as I had in Tableau.

2:25We've lost a bit of the formatting, the

2:27conditional formatting that we had on these

2:29figures.

2:30But other than that, everything else is

2:33pretty much there.

2:34And you can obviously play around with this

2:36feature a little bit more and format it.

2:38Over here in web edit, I actually can't do

2:40that much formatting.

2:42If I go down here to edit, you'll notice

2:44that the formatting capabilities that we

2:46get in

2:46desktop with headers that we can just do by

2:49right clicking here aren't available just

2:51yet.

2:52So that's maybe something you want to do in

2:54desktop.

2:54When people export this in online or server

2:57, they're then able to replicate this much,

3:00much, much easily.

3:02Okay, that's pretty much the feature in a

3:04nutshell.

3:04You can obviously play around with this a

3:06little bit more.

3:07In my tests, I've actually been able to get

3:10quite a lot of the formatting of the table

3:12to come through in the Excel.

3:13So it's going to definitely improve the

3:15experience of exporting cross tabs from

3:17Excel.

3:18So users who are used to the Excel format

3:20will probably finally have a happier time

3:22exporting data from Tableau, which is never

3:25a great outcome.

3:26But nevertheless, it's something that

3:28people ask for, so Tableau have provided.

3:30If you've enjoyed this video, you know what

3:31to do, hit the like button.

3:32If you haven't, let me know what you'd like

3:35to improve.

3:35And of course, check out some of the other

3:38videos in this playlist on 2020.3.

3:41and be sure to check some of the other

3:42great content

3:43we have on this channel about Tableau.

Rollup

Tableau 2020.3 adds a proper Excel crosstab export from Web Authoring, Online and Server, so you no longer have to settle for CSV and then reformat everything yourself in Excel.

Previously, exporting a crosstab from a browser-based Tableau view only gave you CSV, which meant losing most of the layout when opened in Excel. This walkthrough uses a Superstore workbook on Tableau Online to compare the old and new export behaviour.

The Breakdown

Trigger the crosstab export as before 0:42

You export a crosstab the same way you always have, from a dashboard or view in Web Authoring, Online or Server.
Pick Excel instead of CSV 1:01

Excel now appears as an export format option alongside CSV, and it's ticked as the default, so you get an .xlsx file directly rather than a plain CSV you'd have to reformat.
Simple visual exports still just dump data 1:20

Exporting from a view like a map, where there's no real table layout in Tableau, still just produces a plain spread-out table in Excel, so the benefit is really about tables built with structure.
Table layouts, including merged fields, carry through well 1:42

When you export a crosstab built as an actual table in Tableau, the Excel output preserves much of the original layout and merges fields, closely matching what you see in Tableau.
Some formatting still won't survive 2:20

Things like conditional formatting on figures can be lost in the export, so don't assume everything transfers - check the output before relying on it.
Web editing can't fix everything 2:39

If you want to tidy the exported file's formatting afterwards, web edit has limited capability, for instance you can't do header styling there; that kind of formatting is better set up back in Tableau Desktop before exporting.

Worth Knowing

Conditional formatting on figures can be lost even though the overall layout comes through.
Exporting from non-tabular views (like a map) doesn't gain much since there's no table structure to preserve.
Web edit has limited formatting tools, so heavier formatting work is best done in Desktop beforehand.

Use It When

Reach for this when stakeholders who live in Excel need to pull data out of a Tableau view online and expect it to look reasonably close to what they see on screen, rather than a raw CSV dump.

How this Rollup was made provenance & method

A Rollup is drafted by AI from the video's transcript, then reviewed and edited by Tim. Everything used to produce this one is listed below — the model, the exact prompt, and the source video — so the process is transparent and reproducible.

Transcription: On-device — NVIDIA Parakeet v3 for recent videos, OpenAI Whisper large-v3 for earlier ones. The transcript never leaves the machine or gets published.
Drafting: Claude Sonnet 5 in the cloud, from that transcript.
Prompt: The exact Rollup prompt (v2) — the full system prompt, unedited.
Source video: Watch on YouTube
Drafted: 5 July 2026 at 09:38
Reviewed & edited: 5 July 2026 at 09:41 · by Tim Ngwena

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