Power BI allows you to create rich, interactive and informative reports. But it is also a massive pain to create beautiful yet functional reports with Power BI. Over the last 12 months of heavy usage, I have picked up a few tricks to speed up my Power BI report design time. In this post, let me share my top Power BI design tips for creating pretty reports.
This post is part of our Power Mondays series, where every Monday I discuss Power BI, Power Query and Power Pivot.
Tip 1: Use Alignment Tools
A good design should have balance and perfect alignment. Do you know that Power BI has alignment and distribution tools? Just select all the visuals you need to align (CTRL + Click on each visual) and use Format Ribbon to adjust their left / top / mid whatever else you fancy.
Tip 2: Adjust multiple visuals in one go
When you multi-select visuals (using CTRL+Click), you can also adjust their properties in one shot. After multi-selecting, just head to properties area and adjust what you want. In most cases your new settings will apply to all visuals.
Pro tip: use this to make all visuals same size.
Tip 3: Use Themes
Let’s be frank. The default color scheme of Power BI is pretty boring. It looks like someone washed your report in a front-loaded washing machine with cheap detergent.
The fix is rather simple. Just import a peppy, colorful theme and your visuals will don fresh coat of paint and look wow. Use the Switch theme from Home ribbon to import new theme to your report.
Note: When importing themes, pay attention to usability and contrast between colors. Try a few and pick the one that looks good and conveys better.
You can download free themes from Microsoft Power BI theme gallery. If you are adventurous, you can even make themes from the nifty Power BI theme-maker
4. Format faster with search
Over time, Power BI format options for visuals has grown like a beautiful but tangled shrub in spring. On top, there is an ocassional re-org, so your favorite property to adjust something is now suddenly in a new group. With monthly updates, it all gets very hard to keep pace of these changes and new features.
Worry not. Just google the visual format properties, using the Search box. See this simple demo.
5. Use images & shapes to add wow factor
Power BI is like a fancy restaurant with 100s of main courses (charts, slicers, tables etc.) but only one type of side course of vertically sliced & deep fried potatoes (shapes). How else can you explain the mammoth variety of visuals and puny selection of shapes? Oh you want a shape? What is it – a rectangle, oval, triangle, line or arrow? What you want dodecagon? Go make one with XY plot you crazy nerd.
But you can creatively combine images, text boxes and shapes to get pretty much what you want. So to overcome the design limitations of the visuals, use images + shapes often.
Bonus tip: Steal Borrow Inspire from others
Good design sense is a valuable skill. While there is some art in it, most of it can be learned. Take inspiration from giants. Like that fancy report your colleague in Payroll made? Take her out to a coffee and find out how it was put together. If you have no one else to turn to, check out the Power BI data stories gallery by Microsoft. Some of the showcased ones are pretty neat and inspiring. Copy the ideas to your own work and shine.
Inception time – a Power BI visual about visual tips
Ready for some mind-bending action? Here is a Power BI report I made about my top 5 tips for creating beautiful visuals. Check it out below (or online here)
What is your favorite tip for creating pretty things in Power BI?
Your turn.
What is your favorite Power BI tip for making good looking visuals? Share it in the comments section. Let me steal borrow inspire.
More inspiration:
Power BI visuals for you to learn from,
22 Responses to “Master Excel 2007 Ribbon with this Free Learning Guide”
Thank you, kind sir. Well done with the baby making.
I cannot get signed up for your newsletter. I tied both this email address and churchill2001@hotmail.com. never a response.
I cannot get signed up for your newsletter. I tied both this email address and churchill2001_at_hotmail_dot_com. never a response for either attempt.
@Doug, it shows that your email address is pending verification. Can you check your inbox (and may be spam folder too) for an email from me? The subject will be "Activate Subscription to Get your Free Excel Tips E-book"
[...] PPS: If you are struggling with ribbon, you should check out ribbon learning guide. [...]
Very Useful Info..Keep it up..
@Ajay.. you are welcome 🙂
how do u download microsoft excel for free?
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx
Select Office
Free Trial
[...] Excel 2010 UI looks considerably better and less stressful than 2007. The colors are dull and subtle. The icons don’t call for attention unless you want to do something. The menus / ribbons feel smoother and slicker. [Learn to use Excel Ribbon with this Free e-Book] [...]
I can't open this pdf. I get the error message:
You do not have the required license to open this file.
Please request a license from the creator of the file, and add it using the license manager and they try opening it again.
What gives??
I downloaded the file again and it worked this time. Strange. (First file was 116 KB, second was 1644 KB... ???)
[...] More ribbon goodness | Free e-book to learn Excel Ribbon [...]
Hi Chandoo,
thanks for sharing your Excel 2007 learning experience with us; unfortunately the link to the pdf of the free Excel 2007 learning guide seems broken: my Acrobate Readers flags: "Unkown file type or corrupte data".
Have a nice day
Michael
well done this is great
Can somebody just provide a link the classic TAB exportedUI files for MS Office 2003 for us to use in office 2007/2010?. searching online, everybody just wnats to make a buck online with silly Classic Tab installers which do nothing more than inport exportedUI files for you.
Don't give me a ribbon how to guide, just give me free exportedUI files. I should not have to pay anyone for this, it is free XML, MS should have included this to begin with.
thanks
Dear.
There are a set of debit values and a set ot credit values in a column. I want a vba code by whcich the debit value plus a single / multiple credit value is zero that needs to be marked .
finally i will come to know out of the avaibale debits which cannot be used the with avilable credits either single or multiple values.
If multiple matching sets are available let it take the 1st or the 2nd one its not an issue.
Column A Ref
-1000 A
-5000 B
-8000 C
800 A
100 A
100 A
2000 B
3000 B
13000
15000
hi...
how to make this add-ins and display in ribbon... check this sample : http://www.cprsoft.com/GCDemo01.htm
thank you sir...
Please tell me format painter short cut key In excel ?
Thanks In Advance
thankfully.likeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
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