Forum Discussion
Advocate IIDisable "Export" menu on report?
Hello!
I need to disable the Export menu in a report but not do so in the embedded paginated report. Is there any way to disable the Export menu at the report level? I turned off the Export setting in the report settings on desktop, but PDF and Powerpoint still show up as export options. So far the only way I've found to disable those is the tenant level setting, but that breaks the PDF export where I do want it. The paginated report looks like its opening in an iframe, so if I can disable the Export menu in the parent report entirely that should just be good for what i need.
Thank you for any help!
Hey wcarter ,
I get what you’re trying to do and unfortunately, this is one of those annoying limitations in Microsoft Power BI that isn’t very intuitive at first.
Right now, there’s no clean way to completely disable the Export menu (PDF/PPT) at just the individual report level. The setting you changed in Power BI Desktop only controls exporting data (like CSV/Excel), which is why PDF and PowerPoint are still showing up. Those export options are controlled separately and sit at a higher level than the report itself.
The tenant-level setting you found does work, but as you noticed, it’s too broad. It turns off export for everything in your environment, including places where you actually want it (like your paginated report). So that’s usually not a good fit unless you want a global restriction.
Given your setup with a parent report and a paginated report opening in what looks like an iframe the most practical workaround is to control the UI instead of the feature itself. If you embed the parent report (for example, in a web app or SharePoint), you can hide the entire top action bar. That removes the Export menu altogether, without affecting the paginated report inside it. It’s not a “true” disable, but from a user perspective, it achieves exactly what you need.
So in simple terms:
- You can’t selectively turn off PDF/PPT export at the report level.
- The Desktop setting won’t help for those formats.
- Tenant settings are too global for your use case.
- The best workaround is hiding the action bar via embedding so users never see Export in the parent report.
If this explanation helped, please mark it as the solution so others can find it easily.
If it helped, a quick Kudos is always appreciated it highlights useful answers for the community.
Thanks for being part of the discussion !!!
2 Replies
rohit1991Super User
Hii wcarter
Power BI does not provide a direct report-level option to disable the Export menu. Even if you turn off export settings in Desktop, PDF/PPT options may still appear in the Service. The only reliable ways are tenant-level admin settings (affects all users), restricting user permissions (Viewer role, no Build access), or using Power BI Embedded to hide the action bar via code. For paginated reports, export options cannot be removed, as they are always available by design.
- MohdZaid_
Hey wcarter ,
I get what you’re trying to do and unfortunately, this is one of those annoying limitations in Microsoft Power BI that isn’t very intuitive at first.
Right now, there’s no clean way to completely disable the Export menu (PDF/PPT) at just the individual report level. The setting you changed in Power BI Desktop only controls exporting data (like CSV/Excel), which is why PDF and PowerPoint are still showing up. Those export options are controlled separately and sit at a higher level than the report itself.
The tenant-level setting you found does work, but as you noticed, it’s too broad. It turns off export for everything in your environment, including places where you actually want it (like your paginated report). So that’s usually not a good fit unless you want a global restriction.
Given your setup with a parent report and a paginated report opening in what looks like an iframe the most practical workaround is to control the UI instead of the feature itself. If you embed the parent report (for example, in a web app or SharePoint), you can hide the entire top action bar. That removes the Export menu altogether, without affecting the paginated report inside it. It’s not a “true” disable, but from a user perspective, it achieves exactly what you need.
So in simple terms:
- You can’t selectively turn off PDF/PPT export at the report level.
- The Desktop setting won’t help for those formats.
- Tenant settings are too global for your use case.
- The best workaround is hiding the action bar via embedding so users never see Export in the parent report.
If this explanation helped, please mark it as the solution so others can find it easily.
If it helped, a quick Kudos is always appreciated it highlights useful answers for the community.
Thanks for being part of the discussion !!!