Pbir Themes

PBIR Theme Reference

Themes define default formatting inherited by all visuals. Review the theme BEFORE editing individual visuals.

File Locations

Both referenced in report.json:

"themeCollection": {
  "baseTheme": {"name": "CY24SU10", "type": "SharedResources"},
  "customTheme": {"name": "MyTheme.json", "type": "RegisteredResources"}
}

Base Themes (verified 2026-09-08)

Custom themes layer on top of a base theme. Three are shipped:

Switch via View ribbon → toggle on the Theme pane → Theme settings → Base theme dropdown. The Theme pane replaced the Customize-theme dialog at GA; it is sectioned as Theme settings (import / export / remove), Colors (palette, data, structural, sentiment, divergent), Text, Visual properties (background, border, header icons, tooltip, shadow, padding), Page (canvas settings, background, wallpaper), Filter pane, and Filter cards — the same surface a custom theme JSON encodes. An "Update to the latest base theme" banner with an Update theme button appears when a newer base ships; the Reset to default tile in the Themes dropdown removes the custom theme without touching per-visual formatting.

Announced GA in the August 2026 update; page confirmed GA on 2026-09-07. No Desktop build number was verified.

The published theme JSON schema referenced by visualStyles tracks the latest base — current is reportThemeSchema-2.149.json (under microsoft/powerbi-desktop-samples on GitHub).

Top-Level Theme Properties

Inheritance Hierarchy (broad → specific)

1. Wildcard visualStyles["*"]["*"] — all visuals
2. Visual type visualStyles["lineChart"]["*"] — overrides wildcard for that type
3. Visual instance — objects / visualContainerObjects in visual.json (see pbir-visual-json for the objects vs visualContainerObjects split in schema 2.4.0+)

Fonts resolve differently since the Fluent 2 GA: font overrides were removed from the base theme, so textClasses now applies consistently across all visuals instead of being shadowed per-visual by the base. A custom theme that previously needed per-visual visualStyles font entries to beat the base may now be over-specified.

visualStyles Structure

Two-level keys: [visualType][state]. Second level is a state, not an instance selector.

"visualStyles": {
  "slicer": {
    "*":     {"items": [{"fontColor": {"solid": {"color": "#000000"}}}]},
    "hover": {"items": [{"fontColor": {"solid": {"color": "#118DFF"}}}]}
  }
}

Theme JSON Value Conventions

Never use D / L suffixes in theme JSON — bare numbers only.

ThemeDataColor

{"solid": {"color": {"ThemeDataColor": {"ColorId": 5, "Percent": 0.4}}}}

Container Properties (visualContainerObjects)

Place under visualStyles["*"]["*"] or per visual type. Arrays of property objects.

Visual Object Properties (objects)

Chart-specific formatting keys placed under visualStyles["*"]["*"] or per visual type: categoryAxis, valueAxis, labels, legend, dataPoint, plotArea, lineStyles, markers.

textClasses

"textClasses": {
  "title":   {"fontSize": 14, "fontFace": "Segoe UI Semibold"},
  "header":  {"fontSize": 12, "fontFace": "Segoe UI Semibold"},
  "label":   {"fontSize": 11, "fontFace": "Segoe UI"},
  "callout": {"fontSize": 45, "fontFace": "DIN"}
}

CY24SU10 defaults: callout 45 DIN, title 12 DIN, header 12 Segoe UI Semibold, label 10 Segoe UI. All #252423.

Filter Pane Styling — outspacePane (owned here)

Location: visualStyles["*"]["*"].outspacePane. Theme owns every styling property of the filter pane. Visibility / expansion state is separate — see pbir-filters for report.json → objects.outspacePane.

Filter Card Styling — filterCard

Location: visualStyles["*"]["*"].filterCard (array). Target specific card states via $id.

Note: filterCard without $id can also live at visualStyles["page"]["*"].filterCard as a base fallback.

Wildcard + Override Pattern

{
  "visualStyles": {
    "*": {
      "*": {
        "title": [{"show": true, "fontSize": 12}]
      }
    },
    "textbox": {
      "*": {
        "title":      [{"show": false}],
        "background": [{"show": false}],
        "border":     [{"show": false}],
        "dropShadow": [{"show": false}]
      }
    }
  }
}

pbir CLI

pbir theme colors "Report.Report"                    # list palette
pbir theme set-formatting "Report.Report" ...        # set properties
pbir visuals clear-formatting "Report.Report/**/*.Visual" --keep-cf -f

Without CLI use jq with temp-file pattern:

THEME=$(jq -r '.themeCollection.customTheme.name' Report.Report/definition/report.json)
THEME="Report.Report/StaticResources/RegisteredResources/$THEME"
jq '.visualStyles["*"]["*"].title[0].fontSize = 14' "$THEME" > "$THEME.tmp" && mv "$THEME.tmp" "$THEME"
jq empty "$THEME"

Clearing Visual-Level Overrides (Enforce Theme)

Stale objects / visualContainerObjects in visual.json override theme defaults.

• Clear container only (safe, preserves CF): jq 'del(.visualContainerObjects)' visual.json
• Clear all bespoke formatting (removes CF too): jq 'del(.objects) | del(.visualContainerObjects)' visual.json

Gotchas

Reference

• Microsoft Learn: Use report themes in Power BI Desktop
• Microsoft Learn: Create custom report themes (full JSON reference)
• Microsoft Learn: Set formatted text defaults (textClasses table)
• Microsoft Learn: Visual defaults / base themes (Fluent 2, Classic 2026, Classic 2018)
• Comprehensive MS Learn link bundle (theme JSON file format / textClasses / style presets / inheritance / filter pane styling): references/REFERENCE.md

See also

• pbir-visual-json — visual.json value conventions (D/L/M suffixes, inner-quoted hex)
• pbir-filters — filter pane visibility (visible, expanded) on report.json
• pbir-conditional-formatting — ThemeDataColor in CF expressions
• pbir-cli — pbir theme subcommands