Power BI Themes

Apps & Automation

Apply, inspect, and compare Power BI report themes and conditional formatting rules using pbi-cli. Invoke this skill whenever the user mentions "theme", "colours", "colors", "branding", "dark mode", "corporate theme", "styling", "conditional formatting", "colour scale", "gradient", "data bars", "background colour", "formatting rules", "visual formatting", or wants to change the overall look-and-feel of a report or apply data-driven formatting to specific visuals.

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Power BI Themes Skill

Manage report-wide themes and per-visual conditional formatting. No Power BI Desktop connection is needed.

Applying a Theme

Power BI themes are JSON files that define colours, fonts, and visual defaults for the entire report. Apply one with:

pbi report set-theme --file corporate-theme.json

This copies the theme file into the report's StaticResources/RegisteredResources/ folder and updates report.json to reference it. The theme takes effect when the report is opened in Power BI Desktop.

Inspecting the Current Theme

pbi report get-theme

Returns:

base_theme -- the built-in theme name (e.g. "CY24SU06")
custom_theme -- custom theme name if one is applied (or null)
theme_data -- full JSON of the custom theme file (if it exists)

Comparing Themes

Before applying a new theme, preview what would change:

pbi report diff-theme --file proposed-theme.json

Returns:

current / proposed -- display names
added -- keys in proposed but not current
removed -- keys in current but not proposed
changed -- keys present in both but with different values

This helps catch unintended colour changes before committing.

Theme JSON Structure

A Power BI theme JSON file typically contains:

{
  "name": "Corporate Brand",
  "dataColors": ["#0078D4", "#00BCF2", "#FFB900", "#D83B01", "#8661C5", "#00B294"],
  "background": "#FFFFFF",
  "foreground": "#252423",
  "tableAccent": "#0078D4",
  "visualStyles": { ... }
}

Key sections:

dataColors -- palette for data series (6-12 colours recommended)
background / foreground -- page and text defaults
tableAccent -- header colour for tables and matrices
visualStyles -- per-visual-type overrides (font sizes, padding, etc.)

See Microsoft theme documentation for the full schema.

Invalid Properties to Avoid

These properties look plausible but are not in PBI's theme schema. Including them causes PBI Desktop to fail silently or crash when loading the report:

Property	Location	Why invalid
`"radius": 8`	Inside `border` objects in `visualStyles`	Borders only accept `color` and `show`
`"page": { ... }`	Top-level key	Legacy pbiviz format — not valid in report themes
`"dropShadow": { "position": "Inner" }`	Inside `visualStyles`	No `position` sub-property exists for dropShadow

Safe top-level keys for a custom theme: name, dataColors, background, foreground, tableAccent, visualStyles, textClasses, outspaceColor, borderColor, shapeColors

Always use pbi report diff-theme to preview changes before applying, and open the report in Desktop once to confirm it loads before committing the file.

Conditional Formatting

Apply data-driven formatting to individual visuals:

# Gradient background (colour scale from min to max)
pbi format background-gradient visual_abc --page page1 \
    --table Sales --column Revenue \
    --min-color "#FFFFFF" --max-color "#0078D4"

# Rules-based background (specific value triggers a colour)
pbi format background-conditional visual_abc --page page1 \
    --table Sales --column Status --value "Critical" --color "#FF0000"

# Measure-driven background (a DAX measure returns the colour)
pbi format background-measure visual_abc --page page1 \
    --table Sales --measure "Status Color"

# Inspect current formatting rules
pbi format get visual_abc --page page1

# Clear all formatting rules on a visual
pbi format clear visual_abc --page page1

Workflow: Brand a Report

# 1. Create the theme file
cat > brand-theme.json << 'EOF'
{
  "name": "Acme Corp",
  "dataColors": ["#1B365D", "#5B8DB8", "#E87722", "#00A3E0", "#6D2077", "#43B02A"],
  "background": "#F8F8F8",
  "foreground": "#1B365D",
  "tableAccent": "#1B365D"
}
EOF

# 2. Preview the diff against the current theme
pbi report diff-theme --file brand-theme.json

# 3. Apply it
pbi report set-theme --file brand-theme.json

# 4. Verify
pbi report get-theme

JSON Output

pbi --json report get-theme
pbi --json report diff-theme --file proposed.json
pbi --json format get vis1 --page p1