With the out-of-the-box solution, Zebra BI Tables crafts a combination of charts within the visual to provide the best insights into your data, which is great in most situations. Some examples require a slightly different approach; sometimes, the charts within the visual take up too much space, and the other columns get lost in the visual, or we’d like to align the column widths between each other or maybe with a visual below. Regardless of the purpose, Zebra BI Tables allows you to set different widths for columns containing plain values or charts.
Introduction
You can access the resize feature by hovering between two column headers within the visual.
Plain value columns
This option is particularly useful when the visuals include charts with large variances and the value columns become overshadowed, as shown in the example below:
In this case, the columns on the left and right get lost because the absolute variance column takes up the majority of space. We can change or increase the width of value columns to decrease the width of the ∆PL column.
A fixed width on value columns will persist even when the visual’s size is reduced. You will notice the tooltip with the pixel number will appear when you change the width:
Chart columns
Resizing a column with a chart has different characteristics as it affects other columns on the same scale, which is set by default on automatic variances. To demonstrate the behavior, let’s see the example below and focus on the size of the charts in the ∆PL and ∆PY for the China row. The bar’s scale for -448K is the same as the one for the -246K bar at the end.
Now, if we change the width of the ∆PY column, the bars in the ∆PL will also adjust accordingly. Otherwise, the information within the visual would become misleading and inconsistent.
To reset the column width back to the original size, just double-click on the header border on the right as suggested on the hover:
Resize the dimension/category column
To change the width of the category column, go to Settings – Categories set Text width to Fixed, and set the desired width of the Category column in pixels. This means this column will always have a fixed width, regardless of the text in categories.
With these options, you can now also align columns between of two or more separate tables, placing one on top of the other.
Conclusion
Adjusting column widths in Zebra BI Tables enhances the clarity and consistency of your reports. These features allow you to emphasize key data, align visuals, and ensure critical information is not overlooked. With this flexibility, you can present your insights more effectively and tailor your visualizations to meet specific needs, making your data storytelling clear and impactful.