# Write to Excel in Tableau Prep : New in Tableau 2021.1

> 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:** 2021-04-02
- **Format:** Video · 11 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Data prep
- **Tools:** Tableau (prep)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/write-to-excel-in-tableau-prep-new-in-tableau-2021-1
- **Watch:** https://youtu.be/Z0X3WuJGQO0

I walk through the new features in Tableau Prep 2021.1, focusing on the ability to write outputs directly to Excel. I cover how to set up Excel outputs, the create/append/replace table options, and some quirks and exceptions I ran into along the way.

## Key takeaways

- Tableau Prep now offers three output file types: Tableau hyper extract, CSV and Excel (.xlsx), removing the need to manually copy CSV data into a spreadsheet.
- When writing to Excel you choose a worksheet name and one of three behaviours: create table (recreates every run), append (adds to existing data) or replace (creates if missing, otherwise replaces).
- The output location prompt asks for a folder, not the file itself, so select the destination folder rather than trying to pick an existing file.
- Pointing two outputs to different folders produces two separate files rather than combining sheets into one workbook, so set the location carefully.
- Excel has a row limit in desktop environments, so CSV remains the better choice for very large datasets; Tableau Prep 2021.1 also removed the default Amazon Redshift driver.

## Chapters

- 0:00 Tableau Prep release cycle and Redshift change
- 1:00 New Excel output option
- 2:39 Setting up an Excel output
- 4:31 Adding a second sheet and table options
- 7:41 Running both outputs and quirks to watch
- 9:44 When to use Excel versus CSV

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/write-to-excel-in-tableau-prep-new-in-tableau-2021-1

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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