Creating a Sequential or Diverging Color Palette Without Gray

Diverging Color Palette

Commonly the center of a diverging color palette contains the less significant values in the view, and not the outliers that we want to draw attention to. These center values, usually near zero, are colored gray or white to decrease visual clutter and help users get insights quickly. However, there are use cases where all values in a report need to be reviewed and gray/white can make the view difficult to read.

Option 1: Chose a palette without gray or white in the center

The following palettes use yellow for the center value:

Red-Green-Gold Diverging
Sunrise-Sunset Diverging
Temperature Diverging

Option 2: Use an even number of steps

Click Color on the Marks card and then click the Edit Colors... button in the dropdown
In the Edit Colors dialog, do the following and click OK
1. Select desired color palette in the Palette dropdown
2. Check Stepped Color
3. Change the number of steps to an even number

Option 3: Create a custom diverging palette

Custom palettes will blend the selected colors rather than use gray or white. More than two colors can be specified and Tableau will blend through all of the colors evenly. See Create custom color palettes for directions.

Note: Editing a color palette (even a custom color palette) in the Tableau interface or selecting the "Custom Diverging" option in the Palette dropdown will always go through gray.

Sequential Color Palette

Sequential color palettes use a light color to decrease visual clutter at one end of the axis of values. However, one large outlier may disguise variation among similar values, or if color is used text the light values may not be readable.

Option 1: Use a diverging color palette

Color palettes with more colors will make it easier to detect small variations. Try Red-Green-Gold Diverging, Sunrise-Sunset Diverging, or Temperature Diverging

Option 2: Filter out outliers

If the viewer needs to see variation between similar values but most values have a nearly identical color then filtering out outliers will increase the color range available for the similar values. See Filter Data from Your Views

Option 3: Manually edit the range

Click Color on the Marks card and then click the Edit Colors... button in the dropdown
In the Edit Colors dialog, do the following and click OK
1. Select desired color palette in the Palette dropdown
2. Click the Advanced >> button
3. Check Start and/or End
4. Manually update the range

To make many similar values more distinct, make the overall range smaller. To make all colors darker, make the lower end of the range much lower (it may be necessary to use a negative number).

Note: Manually edited color ranges will not update if the data updates. The color legend will show the manually entered values, which may confuse viewers into thinking that the values entered-in actually exist in the data.

Option 4: Create a custom sequential palette

Custom palettes will blend the selected colors and will not go to lighter or darker values than specified. More than one color can be specified and Tableau will blend through all of the colors evenly. See Create custom color palettes for directions.

Note: Editing a color palette (even a custom color palette) in the Tableau interface or selecting the "Custom Diverging" option in the Palette dropdown will always go through gray.