Button slicer grid formatting not retained when published to PBI Service

[am_nr]

Hi all,

I have a button slicer in my PBI report which is formatted with a grid layout 1 row x 6 columns. In the Desktop app it looks like this (just the bottom row, the top half are actual buttons with bookmark navigators):

The grid formatting seems to get messed up in PBI services. The same bit of the published report looks like this:

I'm not using a custom theme, which I've seen can mess up slicer formatting. The Layout section of the Visual settings looks like this:

Has anyone experienced this before or know what could be causing it? Could it be related to other existing bugs with button slicers?

Cheers.

[MasonMA]

Hi,

I think the real issue isn’t that Service is 'losing' formatting, it’s that the slicer grid in Service renders differently depending on how many items it has to place. Desktop tends to 'reserve' empty cells in the grid, while Service collapses them, which makes the alignment look inconsistent..

If you only ever need 2 buttons visible, maybe set Columns to 2. Don’t leave unused columns because Service won’t keep them 'empty'.

[v-sgandrathi · Accepted solution]

Hi @am_nr,

Thank you for confirming.
yes, that makes sense. I agree it feels like a regression because button slicer grids previously rendered consistently between Desktop and Service. However, recent updates to the Power BI Service visual rendering engine (especially the responsive layout logic) have caused minor differences in how empty grid cells are handled.

If your formatting used to align perfectly and now doesn’t, it’s worth logging this through the Power BI Fabric Ideas Forum site so the product team can review whether it’s an unintended change.
In the meantime, adjusting the Columns count to match the actual number of visible items or disabling the Responsive layout under the visual’s formatting options usually restores consistent alignment.
Fabric Ideas - Microsoft Fabric Community

Thank you.

[am_nr]

Hi @MasonMA, thanks for your reply. Indeed, this is the issue but I would still call it a bug. I've used this formatting trick in the past and it has previously formatted the same in both Desktop and Service. If this is the design behaviour, then I will just change my formatting accordingly.