Exporting to PDF doesn't display the images contained in a table.

[EdouardL]

Hello,

Exporting to PDF doesn't display the images contained in a table. I have a table that includes links to images as one of its data points. In the Report view, it displays these images instead of the URL text. However, when I export to PDF, the images don't appear. I just get the "image" icon you see on websites when an image fails to load. Is there a setting I need to change for this? Could this be related to the data source permissions? The date comes from a private SharePoint list, so it's possible that the image isn't being retrieved during the export process?

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Poojara_D12 · Accepted solution]

Hi @EdouardL 

This isn’t a setting you missed—it’s a known limitation of how Microsoft Power BI handles image URLs during export, especially in PDF and when hosted on Report Server or Service. In the report canvas, images render because your session has access (cookies/auth context), but during export the rendering engine runs server-side and unauthenticated, so it cannot fetch images from private sources like SharePoint—which is why you see broken image icons. This is not just permissions you can “fix” easily; it’s how the export pipeline works.

The only reliable workarounds are: (1) make the image URLs publicly accessible (no auth required), (2) store images in a location that allows anonymous access (e.g., public blob storage), or (3) embed images as Base64 in the model (works but increases model size and hurts performance). If your SharePoint images require login, they will never render in export, even though they work perfectly in report view.

[v-dineshya]

Hi @EdouardL ,

Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Community Forum.

Please refer below community threads.

Solved: Images in export to pdf in Power BI connecting to ... - Microsoft Fabric Community

Solved: Base64 Images - Microsoft Fabric Community

I hope this information helps. Please do let us know if you have any further queries.

Regards,

Dinesh

[v-dineshya]

Hi @EdouardL ,

We haven’t heard from you on the last response and was just checking back to see if you have a resolution yet. And, if you have any further query do let us know.

Regards,

Dinesh

[v-dineshya]

Hi @EdouardL ,

We haven’t heard from you on the last response and was just checking back to see if you have a resolution yet. And, if you have any further query do let us know.

Regards,

Dinesh

[Juan-Power-bi]

Your hunch about SharePoint permissions is almost certainly the root cause. Here's what's happening:
When Power BI renders the report in the browser, it loads images using your browser session's authentication — so SharePoint images load fine because you're already signed in. When you export to PDF, the export runs server-side on Microsoft's rendering infrastructure, which doesn't have your SharePoint credentials. It tries to fetch the image URL but gets a 401/403 from SharePoint, resulting in the broken image placeholder.
Solutions depending on your setup:
Option 1 — Make images publicly accessible. If the images don't need to be behind authentication, move them to a public location (Azure Blob Storage with public access, a public SharePoint document library, or any CDN). The PDF renderer can then fetch them without credentials.
Option 2 — Embed images as Base64. Instead of storing URLs in SharePoint, store the images as Base64-encoded strings directly in your data. Power BI can render Base64 image strings in table visuals, and since the data is embedded rather than fetched externally, PDF export works perfectly. You'd need to convert the images to Base64 before storing them in your SharePoint list (a Power Automate flow could handle this).
Option 3 — Use a Power BI Report Builder paginated report instead. Report Builder handles authenticated image sources more gracefully and has better control over PDF rendering. If you're already in the Report Server ecosystem, this might be the cleaner long-term solution.
Of these, Option 2 (Base64) is the most robust if you need images to stay private and export reliably — no dependency on network authentication during rendering.

[EdouardL]

Thank you for your reply.

The images are already Base64 (see picture 1), but when exporting to PDF, it only displays the message "The image does not support export" (see picture 2).

Do you have a solution for this problem?

picture 2picture 1