Style Presets

Overview

Style presets (also called variants) allow you to create multiple styling options for each visual type in your theme. Instead of having one style for all bar charts, you can create different presets like "default", "emphasis", and "subtle" that report authors can choose from directly in Power BI.

This feature enables consistent theming while providing flexibility for different use cases within the same report. For example, you might use an emphasis preset for KPI cards to draw attention to key metrics, while using a subtle preset for supporting charts that provide context without competing for attention.

Creating Style Presets in Power UI

Power UI revolutionizes how you create style presets compared to the traditional method. While Microsoft's documentation suggests editing JSON files directly in Visual Studio Code, Power UI provides a visual interface where you can create and edit presets in real-time. Simply select a visual type from the Visual Styles panel and click the Create button in the variant selector. Give your preset a descriptive name that indicates its purpose.

Once created, you can customize any visual property for that preset using intuitive controls - backgrounds, borders, fonts, colors, and more. Each preset inherits from the default style initially, making it easy to create variations. Power UI automatically handles the complex JSON structure behind the scenes, ensuring your presets are properly formatted and compatible with Power BI.

Applying Style Presets in Power BI

When your theme with style presets is imported into Power BI Desktop, report authors can easily apply them to any visual. In the Format Visual pane, they'll find a "Style" dropdown that lists all available presets for that visual type. Selecting a preset instantly applies multiple formatting options at once - this is much faster than manually adjusting individual properties.

For example, a report author might apply an "emphasis" preset to KPI cards to make them stand out, while using a "subtle" preset for supporting charts. This ensures visual hierarchy and consistency across the report without requiring design expertise. If a preset can't be found or has an error, Power BI will display a message, but this is rare when using Power UI's validated preset system.

Inheritance model: Style presets use an intelligent inheritance system. Each preset starts by inheriting all properties from the "default" variant, then applies its specific overrides. This means you only need to define what's different in each preset - if you want an "emphasis" preset with just a darker background, you only set that one property and everything else (fonts, borders, etc.) automatically inherits from default. This makes presets both powerful and maintainable.

Customizable Properties

Each style preset can override any property of the visual type, including general properties like background color, borders, shadows, and padding. You can also customize title and subtitle formatting, data colors, labels, markers, axes, and gridlines. This comprehensive control allows you to create presets that serve distinct purposes while maintaining your overall theme aesthetic.

Built-in Presets

Power UI includes a collection of professionally designed built-in presets that are ready to use out of the box. These presets follow best practices for data visualization and have been carefully crafted to work well together in your reports.

This approach gives you the best of both worlds: a stable foundation of high-quality presets that stay current with platform changes, plus the flexibility to create custom variations for your specific needs. You can always see which presets are built-in by the shield icon in the variant selector.