Where to look when formatting gets stuck in Tableau

0:00Hey, it's Tim here. In today's video, we're

0:01actually going to be taking a look at a

0:02video

0:03suggestion from a subscriber to find out

0:05what happens when formatting doesn't do

0:07what you

0:08expect it to do inside of Tableau. Let's

0:10fix that. Let's get stuck in. Okay, so I'm

0:12here on the

0:13suggestions page. You can actually find a

0:15link to this in any description of any one

0:17of my videos.

0:18If you click the feedback link, you'll

0:20actually go to a platform called canny. And

0:22here, users can

0:23send in suggestions. And then those

0:25suggestions make it onto my roadmap. And I

0:27eventually I promise

0:28eventually I do make videos on them. So at

0:30the moment, we have about 19 suggestions.

0:32And a few

0:32of them have actually worked their way onto

0:34the roadmap, because I thought they were

0:35fantastic

0:36ideas for a video in this particular one,

0:38this actually started off as a dual access

0:40format in

0:41question. And essentially, we worked

0:43through the problem here just using chat

0:44and screenshots.

0:45And eventually, I figured out that the

0:47issue here wasn't anything to do with dual

0:49access formatting.

0:50It was in fact, just formatting being

0:52really difficult to understand in Tableau.

0:54So out came

0:55the suggestion for this video. And here we

0:56are. Now, before we get into the video, I

0:58also just

0:59want to show you this video by SQL Bell,

1:00this is a video that's got 20,000 views,

1:03you should

1:03absolutely watch it. It's a 40 minute

1:06tutorial detailed tutorial on formatting

1:08worksheets.

1:09I'm showing you this because this video is

1:11so good. There's no point in making a video

1:13when

1:14it's already been done. My video is about

1:16troubleshooting formatting. This video is

1:18about

1:18understanding formatting. So go and watch

1:21this video before you watch this one if you

1:23haven't

1:23watched it before. Otherwise, watch this

1:25video, finish it. And then at the end, I'll

1:27pitch this

1:27video again, because I think it's fantastic

1:29. Let's carry on. Now what I've done is in

1:32Tableau,

1:32I have set up a troublesome workbook, it's

1:35not beautiful at all. But essentially, I've

1:37set up

1:37a table and some sheets. And what I want to

1:40show you is how to how to sort of finesse

1:42formatting

1:43when it's not doing what you expect it to

1:45do, where to look, how to fix issues, but

1:47also more

1:48importantly, how to make sure you're

1:50checking all the relevant places you need

1:52to check for the

1:52formatting to stick and do exactly what you

1:55want it to do. Now, I've got a scatterplot

1:58here, and

1:59I've got a table. Now these are not the

2:01most beautiful tables, but we're going to

2:02fix these

2:03two things. Let's first start with this

2:05scatterplot. So let's sort of try and

2:07address the issues here.

2:08Number one, you can obviously see that the

2:10axis has some sort of formatting color, we

2:13want to

2:13remove that set that to white. The other

2:15thing I want to do is sort out the

2:17formatting and the

2:18tooltip because the formatting on the axis

2:21looks fine, you've got the profit and sales

2:23, and there's

2:24no decimal places. But if I hover over one

2:25of these data points, you can see that I've

2:27got

2:28a disordinate amount of decimal places

2:30there. And more importantly, the profit

2:32value there hasn't got

2:33a particular sign in front of it. And yet

2:36here on the axis, it's got a dollar sign,

2:38but at the same

2:39time, the sales is in pounds. So what's

2:41clearly happening here is that on this

2:43bottom axis here,

2:44you can see I've got pounds, and here I've

2:45got dollars, I need to standardize that so

2:47that it's

2:48pounds all the way across. For me, it

2:49should be pounds because I'm in Europe, and

2:51I'm using the

2:52European version of superstore sales. So

2:54that should be all pounds. And then of

2:56course, I want

2:57to go and address these tooltips. If you

2:59just look over here, this is a disordinate

3:01number of

3:02decimal places. So where to start? Well,

3:04what I normally recommend people do is they

3:07first go look

3:08at the data source because it's actually

3:10possible in a data source to specify a

3:12number format.

3:13So you can see here that I'm just clicking

3:15on the canvas, nothing is selected. And on

3:17the left hand

3:18side, we already have the formatting pane

3:20open. If I want to close that, I just need

3:22to hit this

3:23X icon here. If I go ahead and select that,

3:25it will close that down, and you'll just

3:27get the

3:27usual data fields that you're used to over

3:30here. Now, if I go down to the profit value

3:32, you can see

3:33here, if I right click on profit, and I go

3:35down to default properties, here, you can

3:38actually specify

3:39a number format. And this gets baked into

3:41the metadata for the data source. If I go

3:43ahead and

3:44select number format, you can see here that

3:47the currency is set to custom, it's set to

3:50zero

3:50decimal places, it's set to format negative

3:53values in this manner. And the display

3:56units are not sort

3:57of aggregates any particular level. So it's

3:58just basically showing me the numbers as

4:00they are,

4:01you can choose thousands, millions,

4:02billions and billions with a G. But here,

4:05you can see that this

4:06is actually saying the dollar sign. And

4:08this is actually probably one of the first

4:10places we're

4:10going to come and fix this. Because if I go

4:13and click OK, and then I right click on

4:16this, and I

4:16select format, the option I get here will

4:19show something different to what I'm

4:22expecting note,

4:24specifically where I clicked. So this is

4:26really super important. I'm right clicking

4:29on the axis,

4:30I'm selecting format. And then when I come

4:32over here, you'd think that this pane is

4:35going to allow

4:36me to format the axis. Actually, it's not.

4:38Again, you need to pay attention here

4:41because at the very

4:42top, you can see that it says pane. So even

4:45though I right clicked on the axis, and I

4:49selected format,

4:50it by default loaded the pane. It's on pane

4:53because that was the last place I left when

4:56I

4:56was in the formatting pane. It's not doing

4:58anything smart when I click on the axis, it

5:00's just reopening

5:01the formatting pane and carrying on where I

5:03left. So you can kind of sometimes come in

5:05here and look

5:06at this and go well, this is all formatted

5:09to numbers. So where on earth is that

5:11formatting

5:12happening? It's not happening here. And

5:14then you'll start to go around in circles,

5:15try and

5:15understand what's going on, when in fact,

5:18you just need to go over here to access

5:20because the

5:20axis is indeed what we have right here. So

5:23let's go ahead and select access. And here

5:26you can see

5:26a bit of information. You can see the

5:28default font formatting here at the top,

5:31you can see the scale,

5:32and you can see the title. So these are all

5:34formatting options you've got available to

5:36you.

5:37If I go down here, you can see it's set to

5:39automatic, I could come in here, select

5:41currency

5:42custom, and you'll see that it actually

5:44overrides what's there. And I'm actually

5:46able to change this

5:47to pounds as it has done and go down and

5:49fix this. Now, this is what most people do,

5:51they go to the

5:52problem, they fix the problem, they call it

5:54a day. However, in this particular case, I

5:57'd actually

5:58argue this is the wrong way to fix this

6:00problem. Although it's correct in this

6:02chart, if I was to

6:03go ahead and duplicate this sheet, you'll

6:06see that it carries it through. And then if

6:08I just go ahead

6:09and clear this whole chart, and clear

6:12everything off it and bring the profit back

6:15onto where's the

6:16profit gone, bring the profit back onto the

6:18rows, you'll see that the dollar sign comes

6:20back. So

6:21although I fix it on the chart, I'm just in

6:23the same sheet that I just created through

6:25a duplicate,

6:26as soon as I clear the sheet, it's lost

6:28that formatting, I want the formatting to

6:30stick

6:30on this particular value wherever I take it

6:33. So the fix I applied over here is the

6:35incorrect fix,

6:36the correct fix is to go back to the

6:39default properties for that particular

6:42field. So let's

6:42go ahead and select that, right click on

6:45profit, go down to default properties,

6:48number format,

6:49select that. And here I can actually change

6:52this back to a pound sign. Now that's

6:54correct,

6:54I'll set it to decimal places, I'll set

6:56this all here correctly, I'll set OK. And

6:59now you can see

6:59that this is actually correct. And now

7:02anytime I bring the profit value into the

7:04visualization,

7:05it's going to use that default formatting,

7:07I don't have to sort of mess around. And

7:09then if you want

7:10to customize a particular chart, you can of

7:12course, they'll select format, go to the

7:15axis,

7:15because we're trying to format the axis, go

7:17to the numbers pane. And then here, you

7:19could choose to

7:20do currency custom, maybe do 1000s like so,

7:23and remove the decimal places. And you can

7:25format that

7:26independent of what's going on with the

7:28number formatting. That's why those two

7:30options are

7:31separate, you need that sort of control to

7:33be specific on some charts where the scale

7:34doesn't

7:35make sense. So it's a very sort of

7:37convoluted fix, I sort of showed you two

7:40problems there,

7:41all we were trying to do is fix this axis.

7:44And now that's done. Now, the other thing

7:46to bear in mind

7:47is, of course, we still need to change the

7:49color. So the color I'm trying to change

7:51here is over

7:51here on the left, and over here on the

7:53bottom. And this is where it's important to

7:56really bear in

7:57mind tableau's terminology, when it talks

7:59about columns and rows. Now, when I'm

8:01talking about

8:02columns and rows, I'm talking about these

8:04items up here. And at the moment, you can

8:06see that if I

8:07look at my columns, I've got sales, so

8:09columns is a vertical sort of donation. So

8:12everything in the

8:13vertical column is going to be the sales

8:15value. So you can see here, that's why cell

8:17goes along

8:18the bottom, because essentially, this data

8:20is stacking up vertically. On rows, we've

8:23got profit,

8:24so it's going from left to right. So I can

8:25look here on the left axis, and you can see

8:27the values

8:28there. And so when I actually go to format

8:30the axis, if I just go ahead and format

8:32this,

8:35the coloring will give me a couple of

8:37options. So let's go ahead and try and

8:39address the coloring

8:41of this particular axis. Now, again, I don

8:43't know, I don't I never know why this is so

8:46small. But

8:47here at the very, very top, you've got a

8:49couple of grouped formatting options. Let's

8:52just go through

8:53those very quickly. I'll click on a this is

8:55typically where all the text formatting is

8:58done.

8:58And notice that as soon as you go into that

9:01, you get three options, you get the whole

9:03entire sheet,

9:04you get the rows, and you get the columns.

9:07And so this actually refers to what I was

9:10just talking

9:10about. And this is again, where it's a

9:12little bit confusing, because there's a

9:14little bit of

9:15a hierarchy built into this, you see, when

9:17you format the sheet, it actually

9:19automatically applies

9:21anything you select there to rows and

9:24columns. And then if you subsequently edit

9:27rows, or columns,

9:28or both, it's applied to just those

9:31specific areas. So when it comes to the

9:34coloring, I'm

9:35able to affect the coloring across the

9:37whole entire sheet, or I can target just

9:39the rows and

9:40the columns. Now, if I keep going across

9:42the top, you'll see that I've got a couple

9:45more text and

9:46formatting options. So the first one is

9:49obviously text. The next one is alignment.

9:51So formatting

9:52alignment, again, you've got sheet rows and

9:54columns going along the middle, you've got

9:57color,

9:57and you can see here, we've got some

9:58familiar colors that we're going to try and

10:00address soon.

10:01We've got the borders, the borders that go

10:03around things like tables, we'll look at an

10:05example of

10:06that in a second. And then we've got lines,

10:08so any lines that exist in the

10:09visualization are

10:10all formatted here. Okay. Now, the very

10:13last area is this one over here on the left

10:16hand side. And

10:17this is, this is where most of the

10:19formatting issues arise, because it's not

10:22apparent,

10:23and it's not obvious that you can actually

10:25go into this particular drop down and

10:27select the measure

10:29or the field that you're specifically

10:31formatting. So if I go down to this drop

10:34down, select fields,

10:35you'll see that I actually get all the

10:38items that are already in my visualization.

10:40Okay, so we've

10:43gone through the whole formatting setup, I

10:45've showed you where everything is. Now let

10:47's apply

10:47some of that knowledge, let's apply some of

10:49that thinking to what we're trying to do.

10:51So let's

10:52first click back onto the canvas. Let's

10:54attack this header, let's change this

10:56header so we can

10:57make sure that it's white like the rest of

10:59the chart. So let's go ahead to the color,

11:02the little

11:02paint can over here. I'm going to click on

11:04that, you can already see that there are

11:06some items here

11:07that have that formatting. Now, what is

11:10interesting is that it's being applied

11:12multiple times. So

11:13you've got the header there, you've got the

11:14header there, and you've got the header

11:16there. And again,

11:17there's a bit of a hierarchy, because

11:18whatever I select here at the top, fills

11:20its way down to

11:22these other options. But don't forget that

11:24these options don't necessarily affect my

11:27visualization.

11:27I have seen sometimes people change the

11:30total header, and then not realize that it

11:32's not

11:33actually changing the visualization because

11:35they have no totals. Same with the grand

11:37total. So if

11:37you want to affect the header, you're going

11:39to have to go up here to the top and select

11:41, let's

11:41select green just so you can see that

11:43change. And notice that it changes

11:45everything, changes both

11:47the profit and the sales axis

11:49simultaneously. The reason it does that is

11:52because we are editing at

11:54the sheet level. I know I'm repeating this,

11:56but I'm going to keep repeating it until it

11:58goes in.

11:58We're editing at the sheet level, so it's

12:01applying it to both the columns and the

12:03rows. If however,

12:05I set this back to none, you can see it

12:07goes to white, I then go to rows, you'll

12:10see that some of

12:10the options gray out because they don't

12:13apply to rows and columns. And so here I

12:15can go to none,

12:16I can set this to yellow, and now it's only

12:19applying the effect to the rows, in this

12:21case

12:22where profit is. And if you're wondering

12:23how I know that, it's because up here at

12:25the top it says

12:26rows, profit. And so when I'm editing the

12:30rows just over here, then you can expect

12:33this color

12:33change here to be applied to that. So I'm

12:36just trying to sort of connect these dots

12:39because when

12:39you get stuck with formatting, somewhere in

12:42that chain of events, something is taking

12:44precedence

12:45over the rest of the visualization. So just

12:48be super aware of all those settings where

12:51they are.

12:51If I go back to sheet here for example, you

12:53'll see that when I look at this it says

12:55there is no

12:55coloring applied. And so you can easily

12:57come to this conclusion that hey, what's

12:59going on here,

13:00there's no coloring applied, why is this

13:02behaving the way it is? You might even get

13:05frustrated,

13:05right click on this, select format, and

13:08this time it sends you to the pane and you

13:11only see

13:11text formatting options. You might then go

13:14to the coloring and you'll go back here and

13:16you'll see,

13:17oh there is still no blue selection there.

13:19So where on earth is this coming from? It's

13:22actually

13:23yellow not blue. So you can get stuck very

13:25easily and you can get frustrated and this

13:28is where you

13:28probably reach out for help. You just go

13:30around clicking through all the menus

13:31trying to find

13:32that color and once you've found it you

13:34change it and your problem is solved. But

13:36it's just really

13:37important to know where the fix is being

13:39applied like the first example I showed you

13:41. So we've

13:42changed the color of the axis, everything

13:44is good. Now the next problem we need to

13:46sort out is

13:47alignment. So you can see here that this is

13:49going vertically, this doesn't make sense.

13:52I'd like to

13:52read this from left to right and here this

13:54is formatted correctly so let's try and

13:57resolve that.

13:58So using your newfound knowledge let's try

14:00and see if you can figure out what to do

14:01here.

14:02You might think you need to right click on

14:04this particular axis and select format.

14:06Note that that doesn't do what you expect

14:08it to do. It simply opens up the previous

14:11selection you

14:13had and in this case it is actually

14:15pointing me to the axis. You can see here

14:17that if I go to the

14:18very top it's pointing me to the axis but

14:20it's also telling me that something is

14:22highlighted

14:22here. You can see that fields is

14:24highlighted in a slight gray and so if I go

14:26down to that you can

14:27see that sales is what's selected there and

14:29that's why this is happening. So we've got

14:31the axis here

14:33now in terms of the options you can see I

14:35don't have any alignment options and you've

14:37got to

14:38remember that the alignment options are

14:40just up here at the top. So let's go ahead

14:42and click on

14:42those lines and how we're looking at the

14:44formatting alignment. Now on the sheet

14:46level it says that

14:47everything is set to automatic so

14:49everything is going to do what Tableau does

14:52by default but

14:53remember we are looking at sales and the

14:56sales are found in the column. So sales are

14:59feeding the

15:00columns therefore over here in the

15:02formatting I should probably look in the

15:04columns and so if we

15:05go to columns you'll see that there is

15:07actually a custom header alignment the

15:10header being this

15:11area here at the bottom so this table area

15:13here and if we go into that you can see the

15:16alignment

15:16is set there to flip them 90 degrees and so

15:19if I set that to automatic it now looks

15:21correct

15:22and that change has been applied. So we're

15:25making a lot of headway the formatting has

15:27started to

15:27come together we've just got one more

15:29change to make and that's inside of the

15:31tooltip. Now if I

15:32go and hover over this you'll see that the

15:34numbers changed and the reason this has

15:36changed is

15:37essentially twofold earlier on when I

15:39changed the formatting the default

15:41formatting for the

15:42particular value it also caught that over

15:45here and has applied that as well so pretty

15:48much that

15:49change I made to the default formatting has

15:51already been fixed that's another advantage

15:53of

15:53coming here and doing that but you might

15:55want to change this you might want to say

15:57profit should

15:58be rounded up to the nearest thousand as a

16:00simple example so how would we do that well

16:03my general

16:04approach is if you want to edit anything in

16:06the chart always start by selecting any

16:08white space

16:09right click select format and that will

16:11open up the formatting options here on the

16:14left hand side

16:15now once this is open don't assume that it

16:17's opened it on the correct pane again we're

16:20trying

16:20to format the tooltip value in here so 1927

16:24for profit we're trying to format that

16:26value so it

16:27says a 2000 or 1000 okay now if I look to

16:31the left here as I click through this you

16:34'll see that I

16:35can't really sort of very clearly see the

16:37thing I need to change all of this is

16:39actually sort of

16:41referring to nothing numeric whatsoever so

16:43what I need to make sure I do is I go to

16:45the fields

16:46and I actually select the thing I want to

16:48change in this case it's profit when I

16:51select profit

16:52you'll see the numerical formatting

16:53actually turns up so if I right click and

16:55select format again

16:57you'll see that I just get text options

16:59here nothing happens it's only when I go to

17:01fields

17:02and then select the profit do I get the

17:04numerical formatting options and now

17:06everything that I want

17:08to change is going to show up I've got the

17:10axis and the pane available to me remember

17:12the axis

17:13changes everything you can see in this

17:15little box over here on the left hand side

17:18and this also as

17:19well here on the bottom so now that we've

17:22got this open let's just hover over this

17:24and you'll see that

17:26it still says 1927 and what I want to do is

17:28essentially make this change here in the

17:31visualization and so the way you have to

17:33think of this is there are actually two

17:35spaces in this

17:36visualization there is the pane which is

17:38basically everything inside of the chart

17:41and then you've got

17:42the header which is essentially this space

17:45here for sales and this space here for

17:47profit okay

17:48and those also live in the axis so the

17:51header and the axis you can sort of think

17:53of them as the same

17:54thing in the context of a table it's the

17:57header in the context of a visualization it

18:00's the axis

18:00but more or less the same thing and so now

18:02that I've explained that what we can now do

18:05is we can

18:05go over here to the pane make sure we're on

18:07the pane now click on axis just to show you

18:09that

18:10click on pane and now what we can do is we

18:12can start formatting the numerical values

18:14remember

18:15we've got profit ticked so it's only going

18:17to change this for profit so let's go to

18:19numbers

18:19and you can see here it says eight decimal

18:21places and so this is sort of strange

18:23because of course

18:25we've actually changed the formatting in

18:27the default number formatting to work with

18:30this

18:30particular thing so what what on earth is

18:33going on well in this particular case the

18:36default formatting

18:37is taking precedence over the formatting

18:39that's actually been set here but if I go

18:41ahead and

18:41change this let's say I set this to zero

18:44decimal places we'll set it to millions and

18:46I go back and

18:47hover over it it's not making any change

18:49whatsoever okay so I'm editing the video

18:51and yeah I just

18:53realized that it bugged out on me and I

18:55didn't actually offer a solution so I'm

18:58here in the

18:58future to address that so if we head back

19:02to the chart you can see here that it's

19:05still got eight

19:06decimal places and what I was doing in the

19:08video is I was right clicking the white

19:10space selecting

19:11format going to fields going to profit

19:13going here to the numbers pane and

19:14essentially changing that

19:16that's essentially what I was doing so if I

19:19just try and edit that let's just do this

19:21let's just do

19:22three decimal places you see if I hover

19:24over it it has actually changed and this is

19:26because I'm

19:27using a newer version of Tableau and in

19:29this version it works so what happens if it

19:32bugs out

19:33on you how do you know that it's a bug how

19:34do you know that you need to reset

19:36something well

19:37and the best way to do this is to actually

19:39reset the formatting on the sheet and then

19:42try and apply

19:42your formatting changes again and if you

19:44can't do something that sounds simple or

19:46straightforward

19:47then it's probably a bug so let me show you

19:49how to do that I'll just get my annotation

19:51tools running

19:51here and they're not running so let me open

19:54them up so let's go to presentify okay so

19:57if we go to

19:58the tab at the very bottom here and one of

20:00the things you can do is you can copy the

20:02formatting

20:03so let's say you've got the formatting on

20:05one sheet and you want to apply it to this

20:06one you

20:07can actually go here copy the formatting go

20:09here paste the formatting and it will take

20:11all the

20:12formatting from the previous one and apply

20:13it to this one that's if you want to copy

20:14from one sheet

20:15to another but in order to reset the

20:17formatting if you go to the worksheet you

20:19can go to clear and

20:20you can see here that's got clear

20:22formatting select that and it will get rid

20:24of all the

20:24formatting that was previously applied and

20:27then you can of course now go to something

20:29else that

20:29was working maybe you duplicated it maybe

20:31you've got something else that you'd like

20:33to use and go

20:33ahead and paste the formatting and it

20:35brings in all the formatting that you had

20:37before so that

20:37was a super important trick for showing you

20:39how to get around these bugs on how to know

20:41if you're

20:42facing a bug or not and also just how to

20:44fix things sometimes it's really difficult

20:46when the

20:47product doesn't do what you expect it to do

20:49as you saw in this video so you just have

20:51to work around

20:51that i know the product so i know the bugs

20:53when i see them but if that's you just try

20:55and do

20:56something else and if you can't do

20:57something straightforward it's probably a

20:59bug anyway back

21:00to the video now if this was a table this

21:02would change this it just depends on the

21:04context of the

21:05visualization and this is where i sort of

21:07wish formatting was more straightforward in

21:09tableau

21:09because you kind of have to hunt where you

21:11need to make the change if i was to go here

21:13for example

21:14onto the axis and this particular scale

21:17value here is it is going to change so if i

21:19set this

21:20to two decimal places in this place it's

21:22changing but then if i switch to the pane

21:24let's right click

21:26on format here make sure that profit is

21:29selected and go in here and set this value

21:31to millions you

21:32can see that it's definitely set but

21:34whatever i do with the sales or profit it's

21:36just not changing

21:37that value and so really really do hunt for

21:40formatting issues make sure that you really

21:43understand what's going on and how they're

21:46being applied okay so that's a very sort of

21:49brief

21:49introduction to this particular problem in

21:52a chart if we switch over to a table we've

21:54got a slightly

21:55different problem here now here we've got a

21:57bit of a an arrangement problem and we've

21:59also got a bit

22:00of a sort of a poor design choice now this

22:02table is actually just a rehashed version

22:05of the chart

22:06we just did to show you how i made it i

22:08just right clicked on the chart and i

22:10select duplicate as

22:12cross tab what that does is it essentially

22:14builds a table for you and if i go over to

22:16the next sheet

22:17it's created that table and so i basically

22:19mess this chart up deliberately so we're

22:21going to try

22:22and come back to this particular place and

22:24let's go over to this chart and we can

22:27actually make a

22:28couple of things easy right from the get-go

22:31now if i right click on the top and select

22:34format you'll

22:35see that this time it actually does

22:37correctly take me to the right place so

22:40here i clicked on this

22:41sort of small section here i'll highlight

22:43it in red so you can see what i'm talking

22:45about

22:46and it's actually taking me correctly to

22:48the header formatting now in this case

22:51there's

22:51actually two levels of the header so the

22:53first level is this very top one over the

22:55top

22:56and then the next level is this one over

22:58here and these are essentially relating to

23:01the measure

23:02name sorry about all the arrows and the sub

23:05category okay so these are all there this is

23:07all just being

23:08made available to us and we're basically

23:10visualizing it on top of everything that's

23:12going on

23:14so to fix this i'm actually just going to

23:16remove this subcategory just to make the

23:18table a little

23:18bit easier and now we can see that we've

23:20got the three columns we started with so

23:22sometimes

23:22formatting is about removing something to

23:25stop the view becoming too complicated the

23:27other thing is

23:28that this formatting here is is the the

23:30items are rotated the wrong way i just want

23:32to read from

23:33left to right so again i can right click

23:34and format in this particular case because

23:36it's a table

23:37and now that i'm here i need to make sure

23:39that i go to the header alignment so we can

23:42go to the

23:42alignment options okay and then when we

23:45look at the sheet you can see that it gives

23:47me everything

23:48but actually i want to go specifically to

23:50the columns and here you can see there's a

23:52custom

23:52header alignment again it's rotating 90

23:55degrees let's set that to automatic and now

23:57they're reading

23:58in the correct manner okay now we click out

24:00everything's looking a little bit better

24:03if we look at the profit though if you look

24:05at the profit you can see that this now

24:07does have

24:08eight decimal places so what's going on

24:10here why is why is this different well

24:13earlier on you

24:14noticed that when i was in the formatting

24:16options those formatting options wouldn't

24:18apply to the

24:19chart but in this case if i right click and

24:21format this and i go to fields and i go to

24:24profit and i

24:25go to numbers you can see that the eight

24:28decimal places has actually stuck here so

24:31if i just go in

24:32here and reduce this to zero decimal places

24:35and that's going to be perfectly fine or do

24:38this in

24:38thousands actually we'll do it in thousands

24:41and add two decimal places back and that

24:43will leave

24:43us with something like this okay so this is

24:46great so far so good now what we're trying

24:48to get to

24:49is this no banding no coloring so let's go

24:51back and try and address the banding and

24:53the coloring

24:54if i look at this the uh the banding is

24:56sort of applying every four um every four

25:00items okay so

25:01we have four items and four items and four

25:03items and so on and so forth and on the top

25:06it seems to

25:06be applying itself every three items every

25:08three items is a different color so that

25:11gives me a hint

25:12of where to look so first i need to find

25:14the row editing features and the column

25:16editing features

25:17i need to get to the color x section of

25:19that and then i need to find a way of

25:21stopping the banding

25:22so we don't get this banding and i have two

25:24sets of banding i have it in the header and

25:27we have it

25:27inside of the pane inside of the actual

25:29visualization so let's go and address that

25:32let's right click on

25:33cells the start over here at the top i

25:36always right to right click on format if it

25:38will let me

25:39there we go format we've got cells selected

25:42now in this particular case the header is

25:44what has

25:45the color and if i go to this option you

25:47can see there's an immediate option saying

25:50here our

25:50shading go to that okay if we change that

25:53to none that solves it but it doesn't stop

25:55the banding so

25:56let's go ahead right click on format again

25:58let's address this properly if i go and

26:01select on the

26:01paint bucket you can see that i actually

26:04get the full controls here and here i can

26:06set it to none

26:07and this is perfect because again it's

26:09applying it to columns so it's only going

26:10to change this

26:11for the measure names not for the customer

26:14name field which is actually a row and if i

26:16look

26:17further down here there's the column band

26:19ing options and the banding options

26:22essentially

26:22have broken down into a few areas first of

26:26all the scope of the banding then you've

26:29got the color and

26:30then you've got the band size how thick the

26:32band is so in this particular case the band

26:35is set to

26:35three so if i go back one you can see that

26:37it's set to two and if i go back one again

26:39it's basically

26:40set to that item so you can actually just

26:43go ahead here and select none deselect that

26:45and you can see

26:46the banding has been removed so that's good

26:48i actually like to set these all the way to

26:50the

26:51beginning just reset them like they were

26:52never applied because then you know that

26:54won't mess

26:54anything up the last area is if i right

26:57click here on the left hand side select

26:59format and again

27:00we've got the same scenario i could just go

27:03ahead and change the shading here set it to

27:05white but

27:06the header isn't going to change with that

27:08even though i've got that selected what we

27:10actually

27:10need to do is go to the paint bucket and go

27:13to the sheet and here we can actually

27:15select none

27:16across the whole entire thing i could have

27:18also gone into rows and selected none but

27:20because i

27:20want this applied to both the columns and

27:22the rows i can just actually go into the

27:24sheet select none

27:25remove all the banding that was there and

27:28if i go further down just over here you can

27:32see we've got

27:32a slightly more complicated banding options

27:35because we're in the sheet so the sheet

27:38option

27:38up here sorry just there you can see that i

27:41get row and column banding options here so

27:44i can

27:44actually edit both of them instead of just

27:47editing them one at a time so i can set

27:49this to none and

27:50you can see the sheet uh pane options

27:52disappear there and that's essentially what

27:55this option does

27:56the pane refers to this particular space so

27:58if i set that to none that disappears and

28:00if i set

28:00none to the header you can see this

28:02disappears and then i can i can also just

28:04set this all the way

28:05back and if i if i just show you what that

28:07does let's just set it like that it's just

28:09changing

28:09the size of the banding so if you just want

28:12to set the banding to basically uh one or

28:14every other row

28:15then you just set it up to one but the very

28:17first one is zero essentially and it just

28:19looks at the

28:20table and the context so it really depends

28:22on the way you've designed the table in

28:24this particular

28:25case so we can set this all to none and now

28:27we've reset the view exactly how it should

28:30be okay so

28:31hopefully that's been an insight to how

28:34formatting can get stuck inside a table

28:37is by no means consistent and you know what

28:40i've just sort of showed you um what is a

28:43what is

28:43supposed to be a very brief brief guide now

28:45if you follow other youtubers especially

28:47sequel bell

28:48um she's got a great video on formatting

28:51that you should just go and watch it

28:53basically covers

28:54everything that you need to know and so

28:56that's what you should go and watch and i'm

28:57not going

28:58to bother doing a video when someone's

29:00already done a great job so go watch that

29:01video i think

29:02it's going to be really really valuable and

29:04it's a properly done video as well so yeah

29:07thanks for

29:07watching um if you've enjoyed this let me

29:10know in the comments below and yeah be sure

29:13to head to

29:13tableau tim.canny.io there'll be a link in

29:16the description and or in the comments and

29:19um yeah

29:19suggest some of um ideas for videos in the

29:21future you can see this is what's currently

29:23in progress

29:24what's on the table i do get to them i don

29:25't get to them straight away don't expect to

29:27post them

29:28and have a video in the next week it takes

29:30me a bit longer to kind of get to this i've

29:32had this

29:32running for about two months now so if you

29:35've got ideas head to this page fill out

29:37some of the

29:38suggestions have a vote the nice thing

29:40about this is when you sign up to do this

29:42um you do have to

29:43use your email and so what it allows me to

29:44do is actually send a response so you'll

29:46get notifications

29:47as the video moves through all these

29:49different stages of planning and

29:51organization and production

29:53thanks for watching i'll catch you in the

29:55next video

29:55you

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