How to Export a Story in Tableau

A well-crafted Tableau Story can turn complex data into a clear and compelling narrative, guiding your audience through insights one step at a time. But what happens when you need to share that story with someone who doesn't have Tableau, or when you need to include it in a presentation or a static report? This article will walk you through exactly how to export your Tableau story into common formats like PDF, PowerPoint, and image files.

What is a Tableau Story, Exactly?

Before we get into exporting, let's quickly clarify what we're working with. In Tableau, you have three main ways to present your data:

• Worksheet: The foundational level where you build a single chart or a table.
• Dashboard: A collection of multiple worksheets on a single screen, often interactive, giving a high-level view of your data.
• Story: A sequence of worksheets or dashboards arranged in a specific order to tell a narrative. Each step in the sequence is called a "story point," and it allows you to walk an audience through your findings step-by-step.

You’d want to export a story for several common reasons:

• Sharing with Non-Tableau Users: The most frequent reason is to share your analysis with colleagues, clients, or managers who don't have Tableau Desktop or a license for Tableau Server/Cloud.
• Presentations: Embedding your entire story into a PowerPoint presentation saves you from awkwardly switching between applications during a meeting.
• Static Reporting: Creating PDF reports for monthly reviews, board meetings, or documentation requires a static, unchangeable version of your analysis.
• Archiving: Exporting a story captures a point-in-time snapshot of the data, which is useful for historical records.

A Quick Checklist Before You Export

Taking a minute to prepare your story before exporting will ensure the final output is clean, professional, and easy to understand. Think of it like proofreading a document before you hit "send."

1. Review the Narrative Flow

Click through your story from the first point to the last. Does the story make sense? Is each view loading correctly? This is your last chance to catch any awkward transitions or views that don't quite support your point. Make sure any annotations or text boxes clearly explain what the viewer should be seeing at each step.

2. Check Your Formatting and Sizing

The layout that looks great on your monitor might not translate perfectly to a PDF or a PowerPoint slide. In the bottom-left of your Tableau window, you’ll find the 'Size' controls. You can set a fixed size for your story - for example, a "Letter Portrait" preset if you know it's going into a PDF document, or "Generic Desktop" if it's meant for a widescreen presentation.

Double-check that all your dashboards and visualizations fit within the pre-set boundaries without requiring scroll bars. Anything that needs scrolling will be cut off in a static export!

3. Hide Unnecessary Elements

Does your story point include filters, legends, or parameter controls that you fiddled with to get the right view but aren't necessary for the final report? A clean export focuses only on the data visualization itself. You can hide elements like these by going to the original dashboard or worksheet, clicking the dropdown arrow on the element, and selecting "Hide Card."

How to Export Your Tableau Story: The Step-by-Step Guide

Now that you've prepped your story, you're ready to export. Tableau offers a few straightforward ways to do this, depending on your needs. We'll cover the three most popular methods.

Method 1: Exporting as a PDF

Creating a PDF is perfect for producing printable documents, sharing reports via email, or archiving. A PDF packages your entire story into a single, universally accessible file.

1. Navigate to your Story in Tableau Desktop. Make sure it's the active sheet you are viewing.
2. In the top menu, go to File > Print to PDF...
3. This will open the "Print to PDF" dialog box. Here, you have several important options:

Method 2: Exporting as a PowerPoint Presentation (.pptx)

This is often the go-to method for business presentations. Exporting to PowerPoint directly saves a ton of time and preserves the quality of your visuals, avoiding the pixelation that can happen when you copy-paste screenshots.

1. With your story open and active, navigate to the top menu and select File > Export as PowerPoint...
2. A dialog box will appear. Here, you can decide whether to include a title slide with information like the author and date.
3. By default, Tableau will create a presentation where each story point becomes its own separate slide. The visualizations are inserted as high-resolution images, so they look crisp and clear even on a large projector screen.
4. When you open the generated .pptx file, you'll see your story laid out, one point per slide. From here, you can add your own branding, speaker notes, and additional intro or conclusion slides to frame your data narrative.
5. Bonus Tip: If your story has been published to Tableau Server or Tableau Cloud, the image of the visualizations on each slide will include a hyperlink back to the interactive version online. This is perfect for when someone in your presentation asks to explore the data further.

Method 3: Exporting an Individual Story Point as an Image

Sometimes you don't need the whole story - you just need a single, impactful chart from one of your story points to drop into an email, a chat message, or a different document.

1. Navigate to the specific story point you want to export.
2. From the top menu, go to Worksheet > Export > Image...
3. The "Export Image" dialog box gives you control over what content is included.
4. Click "Save." You'll be prompted to choose a file format. PNG is usually the best option as it preserves quality well. If file size is a major concern, JPG is also a good alternative, though it may result in a slight loss of quality.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

• Forgetting That The Export is Static: It's the most important thing to remember: exported files are just images of your work. All of the cool, interactive features - tooltips that appear on hover, clickable filters, drill-down actions - will not work in a PDF, PowerPoint, or image file. Make sure the view you are exporting already shows the data exactly as you want the end user to see it.
• Dealing with Scroll Bars: If a view within your story requires scrolling to see all the data (e.g., a long bar chart), the exported file will only capture the visible portion. Before exporting, always adjust the view's size on its original dashboard or worksheet to "Fit Entire View" to ensure nothing gets cut off.
• Dashboard Actions Not Translating: If you have creative dashboard actions in a story point (e.g., clicking on one chart filters another), remember this interaction will be frozen in the export. Ensure the dashboard is showing a useful "default" state before you export it.

Final Thoughts

Exporting your Tableau Story is a simple but powerful way to bridge the gap between your in-depth analysis and audiences who need a quick, digestible summary. By choosing the right format - PDF for formal reports, PowerPoint for presentations, or images for specific highlights - you can effectively share your data narrative far beyond the confines of Tableau.

While Tableau is fantastic for detailed manual analysis, sometimes the process of building worksheets, compiling them into dashboards, and then arranging them into a story can be time-consuming, especially when you need answers fast. At Graphed, we streamline this process entirely. You can connect all your data sources in seconds and use simple, natural language to ask questions and instantly generate the dashboards you need. Instead of manually building each step of a story, you can talk to your data, explore insights in real-time, and get back to making decisions - not just building reports.