Creating visually compelling Power BI reports is about more than just crunching numbers and organizing data—it’s about delivering insights through intuitive, professional designs that engage users. Design is a critical component of Power BI development, influencing not just how a report looks but how effectively it communicates information. Great visual design balances clarity, usability, and aesthetics, ensuring that users can quickly interpret the data without distraction or confusion.
Yet, achieving this level of polish is easier said than done. One of the most tedious aspects of Power BI development is editing JSON theme files. Whether it’s adjusting data colors, tweaking font sizes, or refining the spacing, the process often involves hours of trial and error: changing a property in the JSON, reloading the file, and checking if the intended style was updated. It’s an exhausting and inefficient workflow.
This is where theme generators come in. A good theme generator should go beyond simply allowing users to tailor a theme file. It should empower users to create professionally designed reports with minimal effort, eliminating the frustration of manual JSON editing. By simplifying the application of themes, these tools save time and make high-quality design accessible to all Power BI users, regardless of their technical expertise.
1. Power UI
Redefining Theme Generation for Power BI
Power UI stands head and shoulders above the rest as the ultimate theme generator for Power BI. Designed with both seasoned professionals and beginners in mind, Power UI transforms the cumbersome task of creating and managing Power BI themes into an intuitive, streamlined experience. It is a powerhouse of features that combine advanced functionality, elegant design principles, and unparalleled flexibility to meet the needs of Power BI users at every level.
Comprehensive Theme Customization
At its core, Power UI delivers a level of customization that is unmatched in the industry. The intuitive interface allows users to effortlessly tailor every element of a theme file, from data colors and background styles to font families and button states. Unlike other tools, Power UI bridges the gap between design theory and technical implementation by providing clear labels, previews, and organized menus that make sense to designers and developers alike.
The Power UI theme engine allows users to create and customize not only the data colors, but the neutral palettes that underpin all visuals. This flexibility makes it possible to create unique and outstanding themes like this playful light purple style and the warm gray palette used in these previews.
These neutral palettes are applied to hundreds of different components ensuring adherance to the principals of visual hierarchy and material design.
Border Radius and Spacing Settings: Fine-tune the aesthetics of your visuals with precise control over border radii, padding, and margins. Power UI’s spacing system aligns perfectly with modern design standards, ensuring a polished and professional look for every report.
Font Customization: Power UI goes beyond the basics, allowing users to select from a wide array of web-safe and modern fonts, customize weights, and set text sizes that ensure visual hierarchy and readability across devices. Not only can you choose the font you want applied throughout your reports, the Powe rUI engine automatically assigns the most appropriate weight of each font so that visual hierarchy is clear.
Live Previews That Simplify Design
Power UI’s live preview feature is one of its crown jewels. This feature eliminates the guesswork often associated with theme creation by providing an accurate, real-time view of how changes will appear in Power BI. Whether you’re adjusting text styles, swapping out a palette, or tweaking button states, the live preview ensures that every adjustment is precise and visually aligned.
Dynamic Mode Switching
One of the standout features of Power UI is its ability to toggle seamlessly between light and dark modes. This functionality not only saves time but also ensures that your designs maintain their aesthetic appeal and usability regardless of the selected appearance. Power UI makes it easy to customize both modes simultaneously, guaranteeing a consistent experience for end-users.
Icon Library with Endless Possibilities
Power UI’s extensive icon library is a game-changer for report creators. With over 2,000 icons available in both SVG and PNG formats, users can easily incorporate visual cues into their dashboards. These icons are categorized for ease of navigation, come in light and dark themes, and can be dynamically recolored using CSS variables—making them incredibly versatile. Power UI hosts these icons in the cloud and provides a list of image urls so you can you them dynamically in your visuals or just import them onto the canvas.
Additionally, Power UI supports conditional formatting with icons, elevating the design and functionality of Power BI reports. When you choose a light or dark theme, the conditional formatting icons update so they looks great no matter what you do.
Effortless Palette Management
Color selection is at the heart of great design, and Power UI excels with its robust palette management features. Users can build custom palettes by entering hex codes or selecting colors from a visual picker. Palettes are saved across sessions and load load immediately upon login, ensuring that teams can collaborate and reuse palettes efficiently.
Power UI also makes it easy to experiment with colors while maintaining a cohesive design, thanks to its ability to preview changes instantly.
These features save users countless hours that would otherwise be spent on manual adjustments or deciphering JSON schema documentation.
Much more...
Power UI includes a dashboard design e-book this hundreds or real life examples and dashboard design best practices, all showcased into the familiar interface of Power BI. It's been updated with new features and enhancements nearly every month since its creation in 2023
Power UI sets the gold standard for Power BI theme generators by combining usability, functionality, and design expertise in one powerful package. It addresses the frustrations of traditional theme creation with innovative features like live previews, dynamic mode switching, and a robust icon library. The ability to customize every detail—while staying true to modern design principles—makes it the ultimate tool for creating stunning Power BI dashboards.
Whether you’re building a report for a Fortune 500 company or crafting a dashboard for personal use, Power UI ensures your design stands out for all the right reasons.
2. Themes.pbix by POINT
Themes.pbix by POINT is a theme generator create by POINT which is an IT consultancy and software development agency based in Hamburg. It offers a free and straightforward approach to Power BI theme generation. While it lacks some of the bells and whistles of other tools, it provides a functional user interface for working directly with the JSON schema. For users looking for simplicity and direct control, this generator has some strong points—but it also comes with its share of limitations.
The Positives
State Management for Properties
One standout feature of this generator is its dropdown interface for managing state-driven properties, such as the hover, pressed, and default states of buttons. Unlike other tools, which often overlook this level of granularity, Themes.pbix provides an intuitive way to edit these properties without delving into the raw JSON. This makes it one of the more user-friendly options for customizing state-specific attributes.
Intuitive Palette Creation
The tool’s ability to generate a color palette from a primary color is both simple and effective. This feature automatically creates harmonious color variations, saving users time and effort in designing cohesive themes. While it may not be as advanced as dedicated color tools, it’s a valuable addition that aligns well with the needs of Power BI users.
Icon Upload Functionality
The inclusion of icon upload functionality is another highlight. This feature allows users to add their own icons to the theme, expanding creative possibilities for conditional formatting and custom visuals. It’s a nice touch that adds flexibility for users who want to bring their unique branding into Power BI reports.
The Challenges
Lack of Clarity in Property Styling
Like similar tools, Themes.pbix struggles with making property customization clear. While the dropdowns offer a structured way to edit the JSON schema, it’s often unclear what each property actually affects. Users frequently need to rely on trial and error to determine how a change impacts the visual style. This can make the process frustrating and time-consuming, especially for beginners or those unfamiliar with the schema’s nuances.
Limited Documentation
The tool lacks robust documentation or guidance, which could help users better understand how to use it effectively. For instance, explaining how each property aligns with specific Power BI components or providing visual examples would significantly improve the user experience. Without this, the learning curve remains steep for those new to theme customization.
Minimalistic Features
While the tool’s simplicity may appeal to some, it’s important to note that it lacks advanced features found in more comprehensive theme generators. For example, there’s no live preview functionality, which means users can’t see changes in real time. This forces them to export the theme and test it in Power BI, adding extra steps to the workflow.
Overall Assessment
Themes.pbix by POINT offers a no-frills approach to Power BI theme generation, with notable strengths in its intuitive interface for state management and palette creation. The ability to upload icons is a nice bonus, giving users more control over their report design.
However, the tool’s minimalistic design also comes with trade-offs. The lack of clarity in property customization and absence of live preview functionality mean users may spend considerable time testing and iterating to achieve the desired look. Additionally, the lack of documentation or tutorials makes it less accessible for those new to Power BI theme design.
For users who value simplicity and are comfortable with trial-and-error workflows, Themes.pbix can be a helpful tool for creating tailored themes. However, for those seeking a more polished and feature-rich experience, it may fall short compared to other options in the market.
3. PowerBI.Tips
PowerBI.Tips was created by Michael Carlo and Seth Bauer. It offers a user-friendly interface for creating and editing JSON theme files through a series of dropdowns and customizable options. It’s a versatile tool with some standout features, but there are also areas where it could be more refined.
The Positives
Palette Creation
One of the strongest aspects of PowerBI.Tips is its palette creation tool. The intuitive interface allows users to generate color palettes with a color wheel or gradient, making it simple to experiment with and choose harmonious colors. This feature is completely free and is a great resource for anyone looking to refine their color choices.
Live Preview (Paid Feature)
The live preview feature is a valuable addition, enabling users to see how their theme settings impact Power BI visuals in real time. While there are some challenges with understanding which properties correspond to specific elements, having this preview functionality is a significant time-saver compared to editing JSON files manually.
Icon Support
PowerBI.Tips also offers a library of icons designed for conditional formatting. While these icons are not available for download as standalone assets, their consistency and customizability in terms of color make them a helpful feature. The free version provides a limited selection, but upgrading might be worth it for users who rely heavily on icons for formatting purposes.
Properties Customization
Through the properties tab, users can adjust nearly every aspect of a JSON theme file. This is particularly beneficial for those who find the JSON schema overwhelming. While some elements can be confusing to locate or edit, this feature remains one of the tool’s most powerful offerings.
The Challenges
Scrims and Backgrounds
The gallery includes community-created decorative backgrounds (“scrims”) that can be downloaded or customized. While this feature might appeal to some users, it aligns poorly with best practices for Power BI design, which prioritize simplicity and clarity over decorative elements. I strongly discourage using these scrims or any image background to style and layout Power BI reports.
Wireframing and Visual AI
The wireframing tool, which allows users to drag and drop visual placeholders onto a canvas, has potential but feels underdeveloped. Similarly, the “Visuals AI” feature, designed to automatically position visuals, was either unclear in its functionality or caused the site to crash during testing. Overall, these features seem incomplete and don’t significantly enhance the user experience.
Complexity in Text and Style Editing
While editing text and style elements in the theme is possible, the lack of clarity around which properties affect specific elements is a major drawback. For example, changes to font styles or colors often failed to update the preview or had unclear effects. This inefficiency can lead to frustration and negate the time-saving potential of the live preview.
Limitations in Exporting Theme States
One significant issue is the inability to export all states (default, hover, pressed) for elements directly. Users need to manually edit the exported JSON file to include these states, which can be daunting for those unfamiliar with the Power BI JSON schema. Documentation or clearer guidance in this area would greatly enhance usability.
Overall Assessment:
PowerBI.Tips shines as a color palette generator and offers a solid UI for customizing JSON theme files. However, it faces stiff competition from dedicated color tools like Coolors.co or Adobe Color. Its focus on scrims and decorative elements feels misplaced for serious Power BI design, and features like wireframing and Visuals AI seem undercooked.
For users with a design background or familiarity with JSON, the tool provides a convenient way to streamline theme creation. However, the lack of documentation and the scattered focus across multiple features could leave beginners struggling to achieve a polished design. The palette creation tool and icons are definite highlights, but improvements in preview accuracy, exporting functionality, and feature reliability would make this a more cohesive and indispensable tool for Power BI enthusiasts.
4. BIBB Theme Generator
The BIBB theme generator was created by Oscar Martínez Valero and Diana Maier. Bibb offers a straightforward and accessible theme generator designed to simplify the process of customizing Power BI themes. By starting with a well-designed base template, Bibb allows users to adjust a limited set of attributes, including data colors and a few background colors. While this approach provides a solid starting point, there are areas where the tool could benefit from improved design practices and additional customization options.
The Positives
User-Friendly Customization
Bibb’s simplicity is one of its key strengths. Users can make quick adjustments to essential aspects like data colors and background settings without getting bogged down in technical details. This makes it a great entry point for beginners or those looking for a fast solution to create cohesive themes.
Toggle Between Light and Dark Mode
One standout feature of Bibb’s theme generator is its ability to toggle between light and dark mode. This functionality is unique among Power BI theme generators and is a huge time-saver for users who want to ensure their designs work well in both appearances.
WCAG Compliance Checker
Bibb is one of the few tools that actively checks for WCAG compliance, ensuring that color combinations meet accessibility standards. This is an excellent feature for users focused on creating accessible reports and dashboards. Accessibility is often overlooked in dashboard design, so having this built-in feature adds real value.
Phenomenal Palette Description
Bibb includes the ability to describe a color palette, which is a phenomenal feature for users not tied to specific company colors. By providing intuitive guidance, the tool helps users select harmonious and effective color combinations with ease. This feature simplifies the often daunting task of choosing a palette and ensures that even beginners can achieve visually appealing results.
Figma Plugin Integration (Promising)
The integration with Figma is another exciting feature. While still in development, it shows potential to bridge the gap between design and Power BI by allowing users to align their visual elements across platforms seamlessly.
Completely Free
The tool is entirely free to use after signing up for the Bibb mailing list, making it an accessible option for those who want a no-cost way to enhance their Power BI themes.
The Challenges
Default Text Sizes
While the base theme looks polished, it fails to meet some key design best practices, particularly around text sizing. For instance, the default text size for most visuals is far too small, with button text set at 7pt (approximately 9.33px). This is significantly below the minimum recommended size of 12px for readability in web-based dashboards. Small text sizes can negatively impact user experience, making this a critical area for improvement.
Limited Font Options
The default use of Arial as the base font ensures compatibility since it is web-safe, but it only offers two weights (regular and bold). This limitation reduces the ability to establish clear visual hierarchy, as there’s no option for a semibold or other intermediate weight. Adding support for fonts with a broader range of weights would enhance the tool’s usability.
Restricted Customization
Customization options are minimal, with users limited to adjusting data colors and three background settings. There is no ability to add icons, customize text styles, or modify other theme attributes. While the tool is effective for basic adjustments, its utility is limited for users who need more comprehensive theme customization.
Base Theme Design Limitations
Although the base theme serves as a good starting point, it could benefit from more professional design practices. For example, incorporating better font pairings, spacing adjustments, and more thoughtful use of color could make the base theme more robust and visually appealing.
Overall Assessment
Bibb’s theme generator is a solid, beginner-friendly tool with great potential. Its unique features, like WCAG compliance checks, light/dark mode toggles, and the ability to describe a color palette, set it apart from other options. The palette description feature, in particular, makes it easy for users to achieve balanced designs, even if they’re not tied to specific company branding.
However, the limited customization options and some design flaws in the base theme—particularly around text sizing—detract from its overall usability. For more advanced users or those looking for greater flexibility, these limitations may be frustrating.
That said, the inclusion of features like WCAG compliance and the promising Figma plugin signal a forward-thinking approach that could make Bibb a standout tool with future updates. For now, it serves as a valuable tool for quick and basic theme creation while reducing the burden of manually editing JSON files.
BIBB also creates YouTube videos on Power BI design and development.