How to Move Sheets in Tableau Dashboard

Your Tableau dashboard is full of brilliant insights, but one sheet sitting just a few pixels out of place can be incredibly frustrating. Getting your charts and graphs perfectly aligned shouldn't feel like wrestling with a ghost in the machine. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know about moving, arranging, and organizing sheets in your Tableau dashboard, from simple dragging and dropping to using containers for pixel-perfect control.

Understanding the Tableau Dashboard Canvas: Tiled vs. Floating

Before you start moving things around, it’s essential to understand the two primary layout modes in Tableau: Tiled and Floating. This single choice dictates how objects behave on your dashboard.

You can find the option to add new objects as Tiled or Floating under the "Objects" section in the Dashboard pane on the left. The default is usually Tiled.

Tiled Layouts

Think of a tiled layout as a grid. When you add a sheet or object, it snaps into place, automatically filling an available section of the dashboard. Every object takes up its own dedicated “tile,” and they don't overlap. You can resize tiles, which in turn resizes the other tiles around them to fill the space. This is a great way to build organized, structured dashboards quickly, especially if you want a layout that adjusts well to different screen sizes ("Responsive").

Pros: Quick to build, automatically structured, good for responsive design.
Cons: Can be rigid, offers less precise control over positioning.

Floating Layouts

Think of a floating layout as a free-form canvas. When you add a sheet or object, you can place it anywhere - down to the exact pixel. You can resize it freely and even overlap it with other objects. This method gives you complete creative control over your dashboard's design.

Pros: Complete control over size and position, allows for overlapping objects.
Cons: Can be more time-consuming to set up, may not scale as well on different screen sizes unless you specify positioning rules.

You can also mix and match! For example, you might use a tiled layout for your main charts and then float a company logo or an information icon on top.

Method 1: The Basic Drag-and-Drop (for Tiled Layouts)

The most straightforward way to move and arrange sheets is by dragging them directly onto the canvas. This is bread-and-butter Tableau work, and mastering the visual cues is the first step.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

Open Your Dashboard: Start in the dashboard view where you want to arrange your sheets.
Select a Sheet: In the left-hand Dashboard pane, under "Sheets," you'll see a list of all worksheets in your workbook.
Drag to the Canvas: Click and hold the sheet you want to add, then drag it onto your dashboard.
Watch for the Gray Box: As you move the sheet over the canvas, a gray shaded area will appear. This is Tableau’s way of showing you exactly where the sheet will "snap" into place if you release the mouse. If you drag it to the left side of an existing sheet, the gray box will fill that half, if you drag it to the top, it will fill the upper half, and so on.
Drop the Sheet: Once the gray box is where you want it, release the mouse button. The sheet will drop into its tile.

How to Rearrange Existing Sheets:

Once sheets are on your dashboard, you can rearrange them.

Select the Sheet to Move: Click on the sheet in the dashboard. You'll see a gray border appear around it with a handle at the top center (it looks like a field of dots).
Click and Drag the Handle: Click and hold that handle, not anywhere else on the sheet itself.
Reposition: Drag the sheet to a new location. Again, watch for the gray shaded area to preview where it will go. You can drop it beside, above, or below other sheets. Tableau will automatically resize the other tiled objects to make room.

Method 2: Gaining Control with Layout Containers

What if you want a header with three key performance indicators (KPIs) that are all perfectly aligned horizontally? Or a sidebar with three filters stacked neatly on top of each other? Dragging and dropping individual sheets can become difficult here. That's where Layout Containers come in.

Layout containers are invisible boxes that hold other objects (like your sheets) together. They come in two flavors: Horizontal containers and Vertical containers.

A Horizontal Container arranges objects side-by-side.
A Vertical Container stacks objects on top of each other.

Using containers is the key to creating clean, professional, and easily manageable dashboards.

Step-by-Step Example: Creating a KPI Header

Drag a Horizontal Container: From the "Objects" section in the Dashboard pane, drag a "Horizontal" container to the top of your dashboard. You’ll see the gray box appear, showing it will span the full width. Drop it there.
Add Your Sheets: Now, drag your first KPI sheet inside the horizontal container. You'll know it's going inside the container when a blue border appears around the container.
Add More Sheets: Drag your second KPI sheet and drop it to the right of the first sheet, still within the container. Repeat for a third KPI. They will all neatly align side-by-side.
Distribute Evenly (The Magic Trick!): Select the container itself (either by clicking the gray border or by using the drop-down arrow on one of the sheets inside it and selecting "Select Container: Horizontal"). Then, use the drop-down arrow on the container and choose "Distribute Contents Evenly." Bam! All three of your KPI sheets are now perfectly spaced and sized.

Method 3: Maximum Precision with Floating Objects

For situations where you need exact control or want to overlap elements, switching to a floating layout is the answer.

How to Make a Sheet Float:

Select the Sheet: Click on the sheet already in your tiled dashboard.
Use the Drop-Down Menu: Click the small downward arrow that appears in the top right corner of the selected sheet's border.
Choose "Floating": In the menu that appears, select "Floating." The sheet will pop out of the tiled grid and become a floating object you can move anywhere.

Alternatively, if you're adding a new sheet from the left-hand pane, you can hold down the Shift key while dragging it onto the canvas. This will automatically add it as a floating object, skipping the tiled layout entirely!

Positioning and Sizing Floating Sheets:

Once an object is floating, you can move and resize it in two main ways:

Manually: Simply click and drag the sheet to move it, and use the handles on its borders to resize it, just like an image in a presentation.
Precisely with the Layout Tab: For pixel-perfect positioning, select the floating sheet and go to the "Layout" tab (next to the "Dashboard" tab in the left-hand pane). Here you can manually enter the exact X and Y coordinates for its position and the exact pixel values for its width (w) and height (h).

Advanced Tips for Arranging Sheets

Once you've mastered the basics, these tips will help you work faster and create more polished dashboards.

Use the Layout Tab Hierarchy

The "Layout" tab on the left is your dashboard's organizational chart. It shows a tree-like view of every item on your dashboard and how they are nested within containers. This is incredibly useful for:

Selecting specific items: Sometimes, a small object or a container is hard to click on the canvas. Just find it in the Layout tree and you can select it there.
Understanding the structure: You can see exactly what's inside each container, helping you troubleshoot layout issues.

Swap Sheets Instantly

What if you want to replace a bar chart with a line chart, but the bar chart is already perfectly positioned in a complex layout? Don't delete it and rebuild! Instead, use the swap feature.

Go to the Sheets list on the left.
Click and drag the new sheet you want to use.
Hold it directly over the old sheet you want to replace on the dashboard.
Wait a second for a two-arrow "swap" icon to appear.
Release the mouse. The new sheet will take the exact size and position of the old one. This is a huge time-saver.

Manage Padding and Borders

To give your dashboard a clean, modern look, you need white space. The "Layout" tab also allows you to control the padding and borders around any selected item.

Padding: This adds empty space inside an object's border. A little bit of 'Outer Padding' helps separate objects from each other. 'Inner Padding' puts space between a sheet's content (the chart) and its own border.
Border: You can add a border to any sheet or container to help visually group related information.

Experimenting with small padding values (e.g., 4 or 8 pixels) can dramatically improve the readability and professional feel of your dashboard.

Final Thoughts

Learning how to effectively move and arrange sheets is what separates a functional Tableau dashboard from a beautiful and user-friendly one. By understanding the difference between tiled and floating layouts and using layout containers to group your visualizations, you can build clean, organized, and impactful interactive reports every time.

Ultimately, all these clicks, drags, and containers are in service of getting answers from your data faster. Fiddling with dashboard layouts, as necessary as it is, can feel like a detour from that goal. We believe that turning your raw data into clear visualizations shouldn't require so much manual work. That's why we built Graphed to completely automate the dashboard creation process. You can connect your marketing and sales data sources in seconds and then simply ask in plain English - "Create a dashboard showing sessions by channel from Google Analytics and MQLs by source from HubSpot for last quarter" - and watch it build a real-time, professional dashboard for you instantly. No dragging, dropping, or container management required.