How to customize reports in Power BI: A complete and updated guide

Power BI has become an indispensable tool for businesses and professionals who want to efficiently analyze, visualize, and share data. But beyond creating basic reports, one of its most powerful features is the ability to completely customize the appearance and behavior of those reports.

From applying corporate colors and configuring visual styles to allowing users to customize their own visualizations, Power BI offers detailed personalization that adapts to both individual needs and company standards . This article aims to provide a comprehensive, up-to-date, and practical guide on all the ways you can customize reports in Power BI, including using built-in and custom themes, configuring via JSON files, using interactive tools, and much more.

Power BI Report Themes: What They Are and How to Use Them

One of the first steps to customizing reports in Power BI is to apply a theme. A theme is a set of predefined settings that change the visual appearance of all report elements . This includes colors, fonts, backgrounds, and borders. Power BI offers two types:

• Built-in themes: Pre-designed options with common color combinations, similar to other Microsoft products.
• Custom Themes: These are created from scratch or by modifying an existing one. They can be saved and imported using JSON files.

Apply a built-in theme

To apply a built-in theme in Power BI Desktop:

1. Go to the tab View.
2. Click the arrow next to the button Themes.
3. Select one of the available built-in themes. You can also access the Theme gallery to download other themes created by the community.

When you apply a theme, all report visuals are automatically updated with the new colors and styles. You can change it again at any time without losing any content.

Create and edit a custom theme

If you want more precise control, you can customize a theme directly in Power BI Desktop:

1. Select a base theme in View > Topics.
2. Click on Customize current theme.
3. In the dialog box, you can modify aspects such as colors, text, backgrounds, filter panel, and more.
4. Save and apply your changes to reuse that theme.

The options are organized into clear sections such as Name and Colors , Text , Visuals , Page , and Filter Panel.

Using JSON Files for Advanced Topics

For even more advanced customization , Power BI allows you to import JSON files that precisely define all the graphical elements of the report. These JSON themes can include colors, typography, line styles, borders, text sizes, and even specific settings for each type of visualization.

What can a theme JSON file include?

• Definición of data colors.
• Colours structural such as backgrounds, borders, grid lines, etc.
• Text classes with font, size and color settings.
• Specific visual styles for objects such as charts, cards, matrices, among others.

A basic example of a JSON file would be:

{ "name": "My Custom Theme", "dataColors": }

This file can be imported from Search themes > Import in Power BI Desktop. You can also export an existing theme for later editing.

Deep customization with visualStyles

The `visualStyles` property within the JSON allows for detailed customization by visual type:

{ "visualStyles": { "barChart": { "*": { "gridlines": } } } }

This disables gridlines on all bar charts in the report. This setting allows you to establish a unified style for an entire category of visuals.

Customize each visual in the report

Power BI allows you to edit each chart, table, or card in the report individually. This can be done from both the Visualizations pane and the Format tab , where you can:

• Change colors of bars, lines or backgrounds.
• Modify borders, shadows, and visual styles.
• Apply conditional formatting based on numeric values ​​or fields.
• Adjust labels, legends, and headings.

A useful trick is to use the Reset to Defaults option if you want to revert all changes made to a visual.

Individual colors per data point

In charts such as bar or column charts, you can apply a single color to each category by selecting the element and configuring the color from the Data Colors section . This allows you, for example, to highlight a sales segment that has performed exceptionally well.

Allow user customization

One of Power BI's newest features is the ability for end users to customize visuals in the report's read view, without needing editing permissions or contacting the author. This functionality allows:

• Swap columns or measures.
• Change the display type (for example, from bar chart to line chart).
• Add or remove legends or labels.
• Save custom views through personal bookmarks.

These changes are temporary and only affect the user in question, who can revert to the original version at any time.

Enable the option to customize visuals

To activate this functionality:

1. In Power BI Desktop or the service, go to Page layout.
2. Activate the option Allow to customize visual object.
3. You can also limit the option by individual visual or by page as needed.

You can also use perspectives created in tools like Tabular Editor to provide a focused view with only certain fields available for customization, which is ideal for very large data models.

Customize reports in your own workspaces

Another important approach is to create a customized workspace that allows you to better control data access and visualization. This is especially useful when using capabilities such as process mining or custom user reports.

When you create a workspace in Power BI, you can:

• Assign roles and permissions to different users.
• Import analytics from other tools like Power Automate.
• Allow updating and publishing reports directly from Power BI Desktop.

This is crucial when each user needs to see only the data that corresponds to them, for example, a project manager who only needs access to their own KPIs and metrics.

Filters, templates and customized visualization per user

One of Power BI's most powerful features is the ability to create filters that are applied at the user level . This is achieved by establishing relationships between the logged-in user and the data they can see, using features such as:

• Security fields in the database (e.g., 'Responsible Code').
• Row-Level Security (RLS) Roles and Rules.
• Using dynamic parameters to filter datasets.

This ensures that each person accesses only their own information, respecting the company's confidentiality.

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Isaac

Passionate writer about the world of bytes and technology in general. I love sharing my knowledge through writing, and that's what I'll do on this blog, show you all the most interesting things about gadgets, software, hardware, tech trends, and more. My goal is to help you navigate the digital world in a simple and entertaining way.