How to Distribute Evenly in Tableau Dashboard

A well-designed Tableau dashboard does more than just display data - it tells a clear story and builds trust with your audience. A key part of that professional look is a clean, symmetrical layout where every element has its place. This tutorial will show you exactly how to use layout containers and Tableau’s built-in tools to distribute objects evenly, transforming cluttered dashboards into polished reports.

Why a Symmetrical Layout Matters

Before jumping into the "how," let's quickly cover the "why." A messy, misaligned dashboard can create an impression of carelessness, making stakeholders subconsciously question the accuracy of the data. When charts, tables, and KPI cards are perfectly aligned with consistent spacing, the entire report feels more authoritative and intentional.

A clean layout also guides the viewer's eye. By organizing elements logically and symmetrically, you make the dashboard easier to read and interpret. Users can quickly find the information they need without being distracted by visual clutter. The goal is to make the insights, not the formatting, the star of the show.

The Secret to Control: Layout Containers

The single most important feature for managing dashboard layouts in Tableau is the layout container. Think of containers as invisible boxes that hold and arrange your worksheets, text objects, and filters. If you’ve ever felt frustrated trying to drag and drop an object into the exact right spot, containers are your solution.

There are two types of layout containers you can use from the Dashboard pane:

• Horizontal Container: Arranges any items you place inside it from left to right, side-by-side.
• Vertical Container: Stacks any items you place inside it from top to bottom.

By using these containers, you tell Tableau exactly how to organize groups of objects, which is the foundation for creating a perfectly balanced design.

Using the 'Distribute Evenly' Feature: A Step-by-Step Guide

The "Distribute Evenly" function is a magical little feature available on every layout container. It automatically resizes every object within that container to occupy the exact same amount of space. This is the fastest way to get your KPIs or charts lined up perfectly.

Here’s how to do it. Let’s say you have three KPI cards you want to display neatly in a row.

1. Add a Horizontal Container: From the Objects section in the left-hand Dashboard pane, drag a Horizontal container onto your empty dashboard canvas. You will see a grey box appear.
2. Add Your Worksheets: One by one, drag your three KPI worksheets from the Sheets list into the horizontal container you just added. As you drag each one, you’ll see a dark blue shaded area appear, showing you where the sheet will be placed inside the container. Release it, and it will snap into place. Your three KPI cards will now be sitting side-by-side.
3. Select the Container: This is the most important step! You need to select the container itself, not one of the sheets inside it. The easiest way is to click on any single sheet inside, which will highlight it with a grey border. Then, click the handle that appears at the top center of that grey border to select the entire container. You'll know you have the container selected when a blue border appears around all three of your KPI cards.
4. Distribute Evenly: With the container selected (blue border visible), click the small dropdown arrow that appears on the top right of the container. From the menu that appears, simply select Distribute Evenly.

Instantly, Tableau resizes all three of your KPI sheets to have the exact same width. The process is identical for a Vertical container, except Tableau would adjust the height of the objects to be equal.

Fine-Tuning Your Layout with Advanced Techniques

The "Distribute Evenly" feature gets you 90% of the way there, but for a truly professional finish, you’ll want to master a few more layout tools.

Consistent Spacing with Padding

Even if your objects are the same size, they might look crammed together. Padding is the "white space" around each item in your dashboard, and consistent padding is the silent hero of great design.

To adjust it, select any object on your dashboard (a chart, text box, container, etc.) and go to the Layout pane on the left. In the "Item Hierarchy" section at the top, you probably see your selected item already highlighted.

Here you'll see options for Outer Padding and Inner Padding:

• Outer Padding: This adds space outside the border of your selected item, pushing other objects away.
• Inner Padding: This adds space inside the border of your item, creating a buffer between the border and the content itself (like your chart or KPI number).

A good best practice is to set a consistent Outer Padding for all your objects. Uncheck the "All sides equal" box and set the left, right, top, and bottom padding to something like 8 or 10 pixels for every sheet. This ensures everything breathes and has uniform spacing between them.

Creating Custom Space with Blank Objects

What if you don't want items distributed evenly? Maybe you want to group three charts on the left and have a single block of filters on the far right. For this, you can use the Blank object as a spacer.

Drag a Blank object into your layout container just like you would a worksheet. A Blank object is literally an empty box. Once it’s inside the container, you can resize it to create as much or as little empty space as you want, pushing the other items around.

The Power of Nesting Containers

For complex dashboards, you'll want to "nest" containers inside other containers. This gives you complete row-and-column control over your entire layout.

For example, you could start with a main Vertical container that will hold your entire dashboard.

1. Inside that, you could place a Text Object at the top for your dashboard title.
2. Below the title, you could drag in a Horizontal container to hold four evenly distributed KPI cards.
3. Below the KPIs, you could drag in another Horizontal container, put a Blank object between two main charts to create three "columns", allowing you to visually group them but have them in the same row.

This structure ensures your entire dashboard scales predictably and remains perfectly organized, no matter the screen size.

Troubleshooting Common Layout Annoyances

Getting layouts right in Tableau can sometimes feel tricky. Here are a couple of solutions to common problems.

"Why Is 'Distribute Evenly' Greyed Out?"

This almost always happens for one of two reasons:

1. You've selected a worksheet/object inside the container instead of the container itself. Remember to click the handle at the top of an item's border to select the parent container (the one with the blue border).
2. There is only one object inside your container. Tableau can't distribute a single item! Make sure you have at least two objects in the container.

"I'm Stuck in a Tiled Layout!"

Sometimes when dragging new objects, they try to tile across the entire canvas instead of slotting neatly where you want them. An incredibly helpful trick is to hold down the Shift key while dragging an object. This toggles it from a "tiled" object to a "floating" object, letting you place it freely on the canvas. From there, you can place it roughly, then use the Layout pane to manually set its X/Y coordinates and size for pixel-perfect placement.

Final Thoughts

Taking the time to arrange your Tableau dashboard with layout containers may seem like extra work, but it’s a foundational skill for building reports that are both functional and impressive. By using containers along with features like "Distribute Evenly" and consistent padding, you create an experience that is intuitive for your users and reinforces the credibility of your data.

Of course, mastering dashboard design in any tool takes time away from acting on insights. Instead of spending hours perfecting layouts and fighting with containers, we believe you should get to your answers instantly. That’s why we built Graphed. You can use simple, everyday language to describe the dashboard you need - like "show me revenue, ad spend, and cost per conversion by campaign this month" - and it builds a clean, real-time dashboard for you in seconds, saving you from all the manual busywork.