Fonts: Can You Read This?

Well formatted fonts will make your viz more readable. Here are some things to keep in mind:

  • When using different fonts and styles in your viz, be consistent -- similar parts of your visualization should have the same formatting.
  • Try to keep it to 2-3 (font) colors per page.
  • Axes and labels should generally be dark gray as opposed to the default black so they do not distract from the viz.
  • Quick filter titles should be bold and a different color than the axes to indicate that they are common objects but distinct from the view.
  • Never change adjacent fonts by more than one attribute:

      Good Change

      Bad Change

Although there are dozens of fonts available in Tableau, for best performance use:
  • Trebuchet MS or Verdana (especially for tables and numbers)
  • Arial
  • Georgia
  • Tahoma
  • Times New Roman
  • Lucida sans

The fonts in this viz are well formatted, changing color and size enough to highlight certain text, but not so much that they detract from the analysis: