Pro Power BI Theme Creation: JSON Stylesheets for Automated Dashboard Formatting

✍ Scribed by Adam Aspin

• Publisher: Apress
• Year: 2023
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 279
• Edition: 2
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Use JSON theme files to standardize the look of Power BI dashboards and reports. This book shows how you can create theme files using the Power BI Desktop application to define high-level formatting attributes for dashboards as well as how to tailor detailed formatting specifications for individual dashboard elements in JSON files. Standardize the look of your dashboards and apply formatting consistently over all your reports. The techniques in this book provide you with tight control over the presentation of all aspects of the Power BI dashboards and reports that you create.

Power BI theme files use JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) as their structure, so the book includes a brief introduction to JSON as well as how it applies to Power BI themes. The book further includes a complete reference to all the current formatting definitions and JSON structures that are at your disposal for creating JSON theme files up to the May 2023 release of Power BI Desktop. Finally, the book includes dozens of theme files, from the simple to the most complex, that you can adopt and adapt to suit your own requirements.

What You Will Learn

• Produce designer output without manually formatting every individual visual in a Power BI dashboard
• Standardize presentation for families of dashboard types
• Switch presentation styles in a couple of clicks
• Save dozens, or hundreds, of hours laboriously formatting dashboards
• Define enterprise-wide presentation standards
• Retroactively apply standard styles to existing dashboards

Who This Book Is For

Power BI users who want to save time by defining standardized formatting for their dashboards and reports, IT professionals who want to create corporate standards of dashboard presentation, and marketing and communication specialists who want to set organizational standards for dashboard delivery.

✦ Table of Contents

Table of Contents
About the Author
About the Technical Reviewer
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Introduction to Power BI Themes
Theme Basics
Anatomy of a Theme
Themes and the Format Pane
Writing JSON Files
Applying Themes
Conclusion
Chapter 2: Create and Customize a Theme in Power BI Desktop
Creating a Simple Theme
Name and Color Settings
Text Settings
Visual Settings
Page Settings
Filter Pane Settings
Overall Comments on Interactive Theme File Creation
About the Theme File
Conclusion
Chapter 3: High-Level Theme Definition
What Is JSON?
Palette Colors
The JSON Object
Attributes Defined by the Theme File
A JSON Array
Colors in a JSON Theme File
Generic Colors (Color Classes)
Generic Text Attributes (Text Classes)
Conclusion
Chapter 4: Default Visual Styles
Common Visual Elements
JSON Attribute Definition
JSON Keywords
The JSON Hierarchy in Theme Files
Elements Common to Most Chart Types
Extending Generic Formatting for Specific Chart Types
Table Elements
Final Comments
Hints on Writing JSON Theme Files
Conclusion
Chapter 5: Object Visual Styles
Textbox
Image
Shape
Conclusion
Chapter 6: Card and Table Visual Styles
Card
Multi-row Card
Table
Matrix
Conclusion
Chapter 7: Classic Chart Visual Styles
Stacked Bar Chart
Stacked Column Chart
Clustered Bar Chart
Clustered Column Chart
Line Chart
Area Chart
Conclusion
Chapter 8: Complex Chart Visual Styles
100% Stacked Bar Chart
100% Stacked Column Chart
Stacked Area Chart
Line and Stacked Column Chart
Line and Clustered Column Chart
Scatter Chart
Conclusion
Chapter 9: Other Chart Visual Styles
Pie Chart
Donut Chart
Treemap
Waterfall Chart
Funnel Chart
Ribbon Chart
Conclusion
Chapter 10: Maps
Map
Filled Map
ArcGIS Map
Conclusion
Chapter 11: Miscellaneous Visual Styles
Gauge
Python Visual
R Script Visual
Key Influencers Visual
Decomposition Tree Visual
KPI
Paginated Report
Power Apps Visual
Conclusion
Chapter 12: Dashboard Styling
Action Button
Slicer
Filter Pane
Page Formatting
Adding Notes to Theme Files
Analyze the Contents of Power BI Desktop Files
Conclusion
Chapter 13: Cascading Styles
Style Hierarchy
Putting It All Together
Applying Cascading Palette Colors
Conclusion
Appendix A: Sample Theme Files
Sample Theme Files
Downloading the Sample Data
Index