A quick tip on how to create custom pin drop location symbols actually pointing at the longitude and latitude in Tableau.

Custom shapes are a great way to improve your visualisations in Tableau, one of which are pin location symbols to point at a postcode or location in a map.

However, Tableau shapes are setup to be at the centre of your location and thus your pin would be slightly off the point you’re trying to visualise, especially when changing the size of the symbol. There is an easy way to circumvent this by making sure the bottom point of your pin is at the centre of your image. Thanks Andy and Carl for ‘pointing’ this out!

Check out the difference it makes in the GIF below, on the top left a normal shape, on the bottom right a pin centred shape. The only downside this has is that your selection and tool tip will show up when hovering over the bottom transparent part of the symbol.

You can create pin drop shapes in your software of choice and place the pin to touch the centre of the canvas. Make sure to export it in a transparency supported format, like .png

Below a few example pin drop images I drew, feel free to save them (as .png) and use them yourself!

That’s it for now, feel free to contact me about any of the content on Linkedin or Twitter @RobbinVernooij