# Line charts in Tableau | Tableau Charts

> This is content from just-tim, the data-and-analytics channel by Tim Ngwena (formerly 'Tableau Tim'). Tim has 12+ years of hands-on BI experience and covers Tableau most of all, plus Power BI, Looker, Hex, SQL and data modelling, the analytics industry, and the craft of doing the job — always tool-agnostic and honest about the trade-offs.

- **Author:** Tim Ngwena (just-tim, https://just-tim.com/about)
- **Published:** 2023-02-02
- **Format:** Video · 3 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Data visualisation
- **Tools:** Tableau (calculated fields)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/line-charts-in-tableau-charts-in-2-minutes
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weLYiBapRgA

I show you how to build a line chart in Tableau in under two minutes using life expectancy data. I explain the crucial difference between discrete (blue) and continuous (green) fields and why it changes the chart Tableau draws, then add context by isolating one country with a set.

## Key takeaways

- Drag a continuous (green) date onto columns and a measure onto rows and Tableau automatically draws a line chart
- Discrete (blue) fields make Tableau default to a bar chart, but you can override this by selecting Line in the Marks pane
- Continuous fields give you a range axis at the bottom, whereas discrete fields show individual labelled values
- Create a set to isolate a single country and place it on colour to make it stand out against all others
- Switch the aggregation to average for a fair comparison when a set groups many values together

## Chapters

- 0:00 Building a simple line chart
- 0:26 Discrete versus continuous fields
- 0:57 Overriding the automatic chart type
- 1:38 Adding context with sets and colour

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/line-charts-in-tableau-charts-in-2-minutes

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just-tim — Data and analytics, with a point of view. · https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7HYxRWmaNlJux-X7rNLZyw · https://twitter.com/TableauTim · https://www.linkedin.com/in/timngwena