Of the many chart types available in the Show Me tool in Tableau Public 9.x, there are several common chart types that are frequently used—tables, line charts, bar charts, geographic maps, and scatter charts. Pie charts are often used in popular culture, particularly in infographics, but you should use them sparingly and always label the slices with the percent of the total.

Charts and graphs exist to answer questions, and some charts can naturally answer certain types of questions better than other charts.

The following sections discuss in detail some important chart types offered in Tableau Public, but this is not a comprehensive list due to limitations pertaining to space in this book. In order to help you learn how to construct different visualizations, the screenshots in these sections include the placement of different fields on the shelves and cards of the workspace.