topic Re: Can´t do anything outside the dotted area, can't use the full canva in Custom Visuals Development Discussion

Can´t do anything outside the dotted area, can't use the full canva

GGondar — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 20:21:10 GMT

Hi Power BI Community. I'm having issues with Power BI Desktop. I'm trying to create dashboards outside the dotted area but I can't. Every action I do, or any chart I create, it appears inside the dotted area. I have tried with Chat GPT to provide a solution, but the solution it provided did not work: restarting the app, typing on ESCAPE, exit focus mode etc. I also tried creating other dotted area, but I could not, so I'm limited to work inside that small dotted area instead being able to use the whole canva. Can you help me?

Re: Can´t do anything outside the dotted area, can't use the full canva

Greg_Deckler — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 20:41:10 GMT

@GGondar Down in the lower right corner, you need to adjust your zoom. You are at 20% zoom currently and you need to increase this to at least 100%. The area inside the dotted line is your Canvas where you place visuals. The area outside the dotted line is the Canvas Background, which you can control here:

Re: Can´t do anything outside the dotted area, can't use the full canva

GGondar — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 13:37:21 GMT

Hi Greg! Thanks for your response

Understood about the zoom but, why the outside part of the dotted line would be the canvas background, if the dotted line is the canvas itself. I changed the colour and logically, what changed is the area inside the dotted line (see picture).

The only solution I found to make the dotted line bigger so I can use the full size of the page, is modifying the size here: