How to Apply Power BI Conditional Formatting Rule

[khmoongchi]

Hello experts,

I would like to ask for your help regarding a conditional formatting issue I encountered.

As shown in the screenshot below, I applied conditional formatting, and it actually works exactly as I intended. However, I do not understand why it works, which is why I am posting this question.

I am using the Korean version of Power BI, and while browsing other conditional formatting posts in this forum, I noticed that some translations in the Korean UI seem incorrect. For example, “AND” is translated as “END,” which is quite confusing.

Originally, what I wanted was very simple:

  1. Values greater than or equal to 0% → blue

  2. Values less than 0% → pink

However, I could not understand why “END” appears in the rule editor, or why the UI shows things like “greater than or equal to 0 percent END less than 0 number.”
I understand the “greater than or equal to 0%” part in the upper rule, but I do not understand why the next condition “less than 0 (number)” still results in the correct color formatting.

I created a second rule with the same structure but with different colors, and all data points below 0% correctly appear in pink. I do not understand why this incorrectly translated or strangely displayed rule still works properly.

So my questions are:

1. How should I have set up the rules to correctly achieve my original goal?

2. Why does this oddly translated conditional formatting rule still work as expected?

I would greatly appreciate any insights or explanations from the experts here.

Thank you very much.

[khmoongchi]

Thank you so much for providing such a clear and detailed explanation.
Your answer helped me understand the issue far better than before.
I truly appreciate your kindness and the time you took to break everything down so thoroughly.
Thanks again for your expert guidance!

[Ritaf1983 · Accepted solution]

Hi @khmoongchi 

What you are experiencing is a combination of two separate issues:

1. The Percent option in rule-based conditional formatting is not reliable

This has been a long-standing limitation in Power BI.
When your measure already returns a percentage as a decimal value (e.g., 0.12 = 12%, -0.05 = -5%), the “Percent” mode in the UI does not behave intuitively:

It does not compare against real percentages but rather against a normalized range of the column.

Mixing “Percent” and “Number” in the same rule produces conditions that look logically impossible, yet Power BI still applies them.

The UI often displays incorrect or misleading text, such as “greater than or equal to 0 percent END less than 0 number”.

So even though the formatting looks correct, the rule itself is not actually doing what the text says.
This is why relying on the UI for percentage logic is risky.

Best practice:
Use only Number mode (decimal values), or build the logic in DAX and use Format by: Field value.

Example:

Color for Percentage =
VAR v = [Your Percentage Measure] -- decimal value (e.g. -0.03, 0.12)
RETURN
SWITCH(
TRUE(),
ISBLANK(v), BLANK(),
v >= 0, "#0078D4", -- blue
v < 0, "#FF5C8D" -- pink
)

Then:

Format by: Field value

Based on field: [Color for Percentage]

This produces stable and predictable results without relying on the problematic Percent mode.

2. The confusing wording in the Korean UI is a translation bug, not logic

The expressions like:

“END”

“greater than or equal to 0 percent END less than 0 number”

are not Power BI logic — they are translation errors.

“AND” is incorrectly translated as “END”, and the rule description becomes a grammatically broken sentence.

This issue is cosmetic but extremely confusing, as it makes the rule appear contradictory even when Power BI applies the correct numeric boundaries behind the scenes.

I strongly recommend reporting this to Microsoft

You can open an issue here:

Power BI Issues / Ideas portal: https://ideas.fabric.microsoft.com/

Or via Power BI Support if you have a Pro license.

Screenshots (like the ones you shared) will help the product team fix the Korean translation in the rule editor.

Summary

Your rules work only because Power BI ultimately compares raw numbers.
But the UI labels, the Percent mode, and the Korean translation all contribute to a misleading experience.

Recommended approach:

Avoid the Percent option entirely.

Use Number + decimal thresholds, or a DAX-based color measure.

Report the translation errors so the Korean UI can be corrected.

If this post helps, then please consider Accepting it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly