How to Add Tooltip in Tableau

Tooltips are one of the most powerful ways to add context and detail to a Tableau dashboard without overcrowding your main view. This guide will walk you through everything from editing a basic tooltip to creating advanced, interactive visualizations that appear when you hover over your data.

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What Are Tooltips in Tableau?

In Tableau, a tooltip is the information box that appears when you hover your mouse over a specific mark (like a bar on a bar chart, a point on a line chart, or a state on a map) in your visualization. By default, Tableau automatically generates a simple tooltip based on the dimensions and measures you've placed on your shelves.

Think of them as interactive data labels. While a static label gives you one piece of information, a tooltip can provide a richer, more detailed story. For example, a bar chart might show total sales per category, but the tooltip could reveal:

• The exact sales number
• The profit for that category
• The total number of orders
• The profit ratio

This allows you to keep your main chart clean and easy to read while offering your audience a way to dig deeper into the numbers themselves. Well-designed tooltips transform a static chart into an interactive and explanatory data experience.

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Adding and Editing Your First Tooltip

The good news is that Tableau does most of the initial work for you. Whenever you build a view, Tableau automatically adds the relevant fields to the Tooltip Marks Card and generates a tooltip. The real power comes from knowing how to customize it.

Let's use a simple example. Say you've built a bar chart showing Sales by Category from the Sample Superstore dataset.

1. Drag Category to the Columns shelf.
2. Drag Sales to the Rows shelf.

When you hover over the "Technology" bar, you'll see a default tooltip that looks something like this:

Category: Technology Sales: $836,154

This is a great start, but we can make it much more informative. Maybe we also want to see the Profit associated with the technology category. To do this, simply find the Profit measure in your data pane and drag it directly onto the Tooltip button in the Marks card. Now when you hover, the profit total will appear in the tooltip as well.

The Tooltip Editor Window

To really customize the appearance and content, you need to open the tooltip editor. Click on the Tooltip button in the Marks card. This opens a dialog box where you can edit the tooltip like a text document.

In this window, you'll see static text (like "Category:" and "Sales:") mixed with dynamic fields in angle brackets (like <,Category> and <SUM(Sales)>). These dynamic fields act as placeholders that Tableau fills in based on the mark you're hovering over. You can type directly in this box, change formatting, and reorganize the information.

Customizing Your Tooltips: From Basic to Advanced

Once you are comfortable with the editor, you can start making your tooltips much more descriptive and user-friendly. Let's expand on our sales bar chart example.

1. Cleaning Up Labels and Adding Structure

The default text is okay, but we can tell a clearer story. Open the tooltip editor and modify the text to be more readable. You can use the formatting tools at the top of the editor to change fonts, sizes, colors, and add bold or italic styling.

For example, you could change the default:

Category: <,Category>, Sales: <,SUM(Sales)>, Profit: <,SUM(Profit)>

To something more descriptive and cleanly formatted, like this:

**<,Category> Performance Total Sales: ** $<,SUM(Sales)> Total Profit: ** $<,SUM(Profit)>

This simple change makes the information easier to digest at a glance.

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2. Adding Fields Not in the Main View

One of the most useful features of tooltips is the ability to include data that isn't driving your primary visualization. You might want to show the Profit Ratio for each category, but you don't want to add it as another bar or color, as that would clutter the chart. No problem.

1. Create a calculated field for Profit Ratio: SUM([Profit]) / SUM([Sales]).
2. Drag this new Profit Ratio field onto the Tooltip button in the Marks Card. (Note: You are NOT dragging it to Rows or Columns).
3. Open the tooltip editor again.
4. Click "Insert" at the top right of the editor box, and you'll see your SUM(Profit Ratio) field is now available. Select it to add it to your tooltip.
5. Format the number to be a percentage for readability.

Your tooltip text can now look like this:

<,Category> Performance Total Sales: ** $<,SUM(Sales)> Total Profit: ** $<,SUM(Profit)> Profit Ratio: ** <SUM(Profit) / SUM(Sales)>%

You've successfully added a layer of deep insight that is only revealed when the user engages with the chart.

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3. Creating a "Viz in Tooltip"

Viz in Tooltip is a more advanced feature that lets you embed an entirely different worksheet inside your tooltip. This unlocks incredible potential for interactive data exploration. A classic example is hovering over a state on a map to see a line chart of that state's sales trend over time.

Let's walk through it step-by-step.

Step 1: Create the Primary Visualization

First, build your main view. Let's create a map of sales by state.

• Double-click the State dimension. Tableau will generate a map.
• Drag the Sales measure onto the Color button on the Marks card.

Now you have a map where states are colored based on their total sales.

Step 2: Create the Tooltip Visualization

Next, create the chart you want to appear inside the tooltip on a new worksheet.

• Create a new worksheet and name it something intuitive, like "Sales Trend."
• Drag Sales to the Rows shelf.
• Drag Order Date to the Columns shelf. Right-click the "YEAR(Order Date)" pill and change it to show by Month (the second, continuous option).
• To make it fit nicely in the tooltip, you can also hide the title and axis labels by right-clicking them and unchecking "Show Header."

You now have a simple line chart showing the trend of sales over time. This worksheet will be the "viz" in our tooltip.

Step 3: Insert the Viz in the Tooltip

Go back to your primary visualization worksheet (the map).

1. Click the Tooltip button on the Marks card to open the editor.
2. Place your cursor where you want the trend chart to appear.
3. Click the Insert drop-down menu at the upper-right of the editor.
4. Hover over Sheets and click on your tooltip worksheet ("Sales Trend").

You will now see a snippet of code inserted into your tooltip editor. It will look something like this:

<Sheet name="Sales Trend" maxwidth="300" maxheight="300" filter="<All Fields>,">

Click OK. Now, when you hover over a state like California on your map, the line chart you created on the "Sales Trend" sheet will appear inside the tooltip, automatically filtered to show only California's sales trend!

A breakdown of the code snippet:

• Sheet name: The worksheet being embedded.
• maxwidth and maxheight: Controls the size of the visualization in pixels. You can adjust these numbers to fit your design.
• filter: This is the magic part. It tells Tableau to filter the tooltip viz based on all the dimensions of the selected mark on the primary viz (in this case, by State). You can change this to filter only by specific fields if needed.

Pro Tips for Better Tooltips

• Keep it clean: Don't try to cram every field into the tooltip. Focus on adding valuable information that answers the next logical question the user might have.
• Use commands: You can add options like "Keep Only," "Exclude," and other filtering commands to your tooltip. Uncheck the "Include command buttons" option in the editor if you don't need them.
• Tell a story: Use sentences and clear language. Instead of just listing numbers, you can write something like: "In <,State>, we achieved <SUM(Sales)> in sales, resulting in a profit ratio of <AGG(Profit Ratio)>."
• Consider your audience: Tailor the information in the tooltip to the person reading the dashboard. An executive might want high-level summaries, while an analyst may need more granular detail.

Final Thoughts

Tooltips are an essential feature for making your Tableau dashboards insightful and interactive. By moving beyond the default settings and thoughtfully designing what appears on hover, you can provide layered context that enables your audience to explore the data without feeling overwhelmed.

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