Theming in Power BI

## Theming in PowerBI (what to look for in themes/importance of theming)

We will explain how to apply different themes to reports within Power BI

Themes are an important aspect of data visualization. They enable you to set the mood and determine how you want the data to be perceived by the audience. A good theme should have unity, subtlety, and flow. When those characteristics are successfully implemented in the data, the message gets across clearly. There is so much flexibility within themes in Power BI that allows you to be as creative as you want. PowerBI also has a variety of pre-designed themes you can choose from. Continue reading this section to find out more.

## Built-in Themes

To access the built-in themes in PowerBI, navigate to the *View* tab and locate the *Themes* section.

Built-in Themes include:

* Default
* Bloom
* City Park
* Classic
* Classroom
* Colorblind Safe
* Divergent
* Electric
* Executive
* Frontier
* High Contrast
* Highrise
* Innovate
* Solar
* Storm
* Sunset
* Temperature
* Tidal
* Twilight
Here is an example of the Innovate theme from the built in themes:

## Community themes and .JSON Files

PowerBI also allows users to import themes created by the community. To do this, select *Theme gallery* at the bottom of the drop-down. This will take you to the Themes gallery on Microsoft's PowerBI Community page.

From there you can select from a couple of themes created by other users of PowerBI. Once you find the theme that you want to use click on it and you will be redirected to another page. Scroll down on the page and there are two options for downloading the file, one is to download as a .PNG and the other is to download as a.JSON. Download the theme as a .JSON.

Go back into PowerBI and click on Browse for themes (right above Theme Gallery). It will pop up with your computer's downloaded themes and the .JSON file will be there. Select the file, click open, and now you have a community theme!

## Custom Themes: Names, text, visuals, Page, Filter Pane (Website Theme, Microsoft Power BI)

If the built-in themes aren't quite what you're looking for, you can customize a theme to fit your exact needs.

Whether you have a company's color scheme to work with, or just don't quite like one of the built-in themes, customizing a theme is a great way to make a dashboard feel like your own. Once in the *Customize theme* window, there are five different tabs you can select:

* Names and colors
* Text
* Visuals
* Page
* Filter Pane

#### Names and Colors

In this tab you can edit all of the different colors of the theme. The *Theme Colors* section determine all of the colors that can be easily applied to the dashboard. The colors you select in these sections will be the default colors that can be used when changing the colors of the visuals.

#### Text

For the text tab, there are four subtabs:

* General
* Title
* Cards and KPIs
* Tab Headers

*General* is for all text in the dashboard that is not in the following types. For example, a smart narrative visual will have a lot of text. When you change the settings in the *General* section, you will notice the changes in this section. In the *Title* section, the changes made here will change the titles of all of the visuals. The *Cards and KPIs* section is also very straight forward. The changes here make changes to the Cards and KPIs in the dashboard. *Tab headers* also will edit the text of tab headers

#### Visuals

For the visuals tab, there are four subtabs:

* Background
* Border
* Header
* Tooltip

The visuals tab deals with all of the visuals that you create. The background sub tab lets you customize the color of the background of all of the visuals. The border subtab lets you change color of the border of all of the created visuals. The header subtab lets you customize the color of the headers. Headers are the icons that appear at the top of each visual (bottom if the visual is at the top of the dashboard). These allow the user to see what filters are impacting the visual, put the visual into focus mode, and other options. The tooltip subtab lets you change the color of the text, values, and background of the tooltips. Tooltips are the pop-up text that gives more details about the visual.

#### Page

This subtab's purpose is to set the color for the background and wallpaper of the dashboard.

#### Filter Pane

The subtab's purpose is to set the color of the filter pane and its text.

After customizing a theme to your liking and clicking *Apply*, your custom theme(s) will be shown on the theme interface, along with all of the built-in themes, for quick access.

## Sources

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/desktop-report-themes

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/desktop-custom-tooltips

## Authors

Wendy Forlemu, Jacob Gonzales, Zach Larson, Adam Einsel