Adding drop lines in Tableau

Introduction

Drop lines are interactive features that call out the position of marks in the view. This feature comes in handy when presenting views packed with a lot of marks. For example, when you create a scatter plot densely packed with marks, you can turn on the drop lines feature to show the position of each mark when highlighted.

(Note: This feature works only on Tableau Desktop.)

Adding drop lines

Let’s say using the sample-superstore data set, you’ve created a scatter plot showing Profit and Sales for each Order ID. See the view below.

To enable users, easily identify the position of each mark on the view (through highlighting), you can add drop lines by simply,

Right-clicking anywhere on the view.
Select ‘Show Drop Lines’ under ‘Drop Lines’ option.

Notice, when you highlight any mark on the view, the drop lines appear without labels.

Let’s add the labels by.

Right-clicking on the view.
Under Drop Lines >> choose ‘Edit Drop Lines…’
On the pop-up dialog box, choose Automatic under labels.

Notice, the drop lines appear with labels (which is more interpretable).

Formatting drop lines

You can format drop lines by selecting Drop Lines…. Under Format menu.

And customize the line, font, alignment, and shading as per your needs.

Resulting to…

Conclusion

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