What is Tableau Reader?

Tableau Reader is a free desktop application that opens packaged workbooks (.twbx) and lets you interact with them — filter, sort, hover for tooltips, drill through actions.

What it cannot do is create or edit. There is no connecting to data, no building sheets, and no publishing.

It is the answer to sharing an interactive workbook with someone who has no Server licence, at the cost that the recipient receives the underlying data inside the file and the figures are frozen at the moment it was saved.

For anything ongoing, Server or Cloud is the better route — it keeps the data current and under permission control rather than sitting in a file on someone's laptop.