Forum Discussion
PBI Template
- 2 months ago
Hi Yuanzhou123, welcome!
Yes — there's plenty to save you time, and it's worth knowing there are two different things here:
Themes handle the colors and fonts (your "what color should it be" pain). The easiest one is built right into Power BI Desktop: go to the View ribbon → Themes dropdown → Theme gallery. That opens Microsoft's community site where you can download free theme files and import them — instantly restyles your whole report, no design work needed. The same dropdown also has built-in themes you can apply in one click as a starting point.
Templates (.pbit/.pbix files) are whole pre-built reports — layout, visuals, even sample measures — that you adapt with your own data. These are the bigger time-saver if it's the layout you struggle with, not just color.
Free places to grab these:
- Built-in theme gallery (View → Themes → Theme gallery) — start here, it's free and no install.
- powerbi.tips (https://tools.powerbi.tips/themes/gallery) — a free theme generator plus "Gallery Projects" that bundle a background, theme, and visuals together, so you get a designed layout and colors in one go.
- Customize current theme— (built into Power BI Desktop: View → Themes → Customize current theme) — a visual editor for colors, fonts, and backgrounds with live changes, no external site needed.
- For full report templates, searching GitHub for "powerbi" turns up many free, beginner-friendly sample dashboards (sales, HR, finance) you can open and learn from.
Microsoft's guide on applying and importing themes:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/desktop-report-themes
My tip: start with a theme from the gallery to fix the colors fast, then borrow a layout from a sample dashboard you like. You'll spend a lot less time on formatting.
Best regards,
Parchitect · Solutions Architect · Microsoft Fabric Specialist
Hi Yuanzhou123,
I hope you're doing well today ☺️❤️
So Yes there it is in View tab as it is showing in this image you can use it to apply themes for your report (I was using it at the beginning)
Also Microsoft Learn has a samples page with ready made reports and datasets including downloadable .pbix and .pbit files so you can open a report layout and reuse it
Tips: (You should try these to be expert at formating dashboards)
- Colors - one of the best websites i used in my career for getting pallettes for my Customers
- Fabric Community Gallery - Also one of the most amazing places to find Dashboards you can download
- Color Hunt - Also Useful website to get an amazing pallettes