# How to use Tableau Workbooks & Packaged Workbooks

> 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:** 2020-12-07
- **Format:** Video · 24 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Data visualisation, Tool strategy
- **Tools:** Tableau (cloud, dashboards, extracts, public, server)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/tableau-workbooks
- **Watch:** https://www.youtu.be/snNh0u5Zgjk

This is the final video in my playlist on Tableau file types, covering Tableau workbooks (.twb) and packaged workbooks (.twbx). I show what's actually stored inside each file, how packaging brings data and assets together, and how to publish up to Tableau Server, Tableau Online and Tableau Public.

## Key takeaways

- A .twb workbook only stores XML metadata about your data source, sheets, dashboards and server connection, not the data itself, which is why it can be tiny (around 30KB) compared to the source file.
- A .twbx packaged workbook bundles the workbook with its assets, packaging an extract if you created one, or copying static files like Excel and CSV if you're on a live connection, while databases just prompt you to log in again.
- Saving a packaged workbook back as a plain .twb splits it into the workbook plus its constituent files, so accidentally unpackaging can lose the heritage of where an extract came from.
- Publishing to Tableau Public requires an extract because live connections won't work, and you must sign into the correct server site before publishing to Online or Server.
- On Tableau Public you can browse a viz's hidden sheets unless the author has explicitly hidden each tab, so always hide sheets you don't want others to see.

## Chapters

- 0:50 Creating a workbook and connecting data
- 3:35 What's inside a .twb file (XML)
- 5:33 Sheets, dashboards and server connections
- 7:50 How packaged workbooks bundle data
- 9:56 Extract vs live connection behaviour
- 15:39 Publishing to Tableau Server and Online
- 19:16 Publishing to Tableau Public

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

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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