power-bi-themes

Power BI Themes Skill

Manage report-wide themes and per-visual conditional formatting. No Power BI Desktop connection is needed.

Applying a Theme

Power BI themes are JSON files that define colours, fonts, and visual defaults for the entire report. Apply one with:

pbi report set-theme --file corporate-theme.json

This copies the theme file into the report's StaticResources/RegisteredResources/ folder and updates report.json to reference it. The theme takes effect when the report is opened in Power BI Desktop.

Inspecting the Current Theme

pbi report get-theme

Returns:

• base_theme -- the built-in theme name (e.g. "CY24SU06")
• custom_theme -- custom theme name if one is applied (or null)
• theme_data -- full JSON of the custom theme file (if it exists)

Comparing Themes

Before applying a new theme, preview what would change:

pbi report diff-theme --file proposed-theme.json

Returns:

• current / proposed -- display names
• added -- keys in proposed but not current
• removed -- keys in current but not proposed
• changed -- keys present in both but with different values

This helps catch unintended colour changes before committing.

Theme JSON Structure

A Power BI theme JSON file typically contains:

{
  "name": "Corporate Brand",
  "dataColors": ["#0078D4", "#00BCF2", "#FFB900", "#D83B01", "#8661C5", "#00B294"],
  "background": "#FFFFFF",
  "foreground": "#252423",
  "tableAccent": "#0078D4",
  "visualStyles": { ... }
}

Key sections:

• dataColors -- palette for data series (6-12 colours recommended)
• background / foreground -- page and text defaults
• tableAccent -- header colour for tables and matrices
• visualStyles -- per-visual-type overrides (font sizes, padding, etc.)

See Microsoft theme documentation for the full schema.

Conditional Formatting

Apply data-driven formatting to individual visuals: