💁 About this article
This article is part of Fugo’s Power BI knowledge base: a collection of resources answering common Power BI questions. We include notes throughout where Fugo’s integration may be helpful for displaying dashboards on digital signage.
Table of contents
Short answer
Power BI themes are JSON files that define the visual styling of Power BI reports.
They control colors, fonts, and default formatting so reports follow a consistent design without manual styling on every visual.
Themes don’t change your data or logic. They only affect how reports look.
What Power BI themes are
A Power BI theme is a report-level design configuration that sets defaults for things like:
Color palettes
Font families
Text sizes
Backgrounds
Visual borders and titles
Once applied, the theme automatically styles visuals as you add them to a report. This helps teams maintain consistent branding and layout across multiple dashboards.
Themes are especially useful when:
Multiple people build reports
Reports need to follow brand guidelines
Visual consistency matters more than custom one-off designs
What Power BI themes control (and what they don’t)
Power BI themes do control:
Default colors for charts and visuals
Font families and base sizes
Background and border settings
Visual-level defaults (to an extent)
Power BI themes do not control:
Page layout or spacing
Visual positioning
Data models, measures, or calculations
Interactivity or behavior
This distinction matters. A theme won’t turn a poorly designed report into a good one - it just ensures consistent styling.
How Power BI themes work under the hood
Power BI themes are stored as JSON files.
Each theme file defines styling rules for:
General report settings
Specific visual types (charts, tables, cards, etc.)
Text, labels, and titles
When you import a theme into Power BI Desktop, those rules become the default for the report. You can still override them manually, but the theme provides a starting point.
Advanced users sometimes edit the JSON directly to fine-tune behavior beyond what the UI exposes.
Where to download Power BI themes
There are several well-established places to download Power BI themes:
Microsoft Fabric Community – Themes Gallery
The Fabric Community Themes Gallery hosts user-submitted Power BI themes that can be downloaded and applied directly. These are useful for inspiration and quick experimentation.
PowerBI.tips Theme Gallery
PowerBI.tips maintains a large gallery of downloadable themes, along with templates and wireframes designed specifically for Power BI.
This is one of the most commonly recommended resources in the Power BI community.
AppSource and community projects
Some Power BI apps and community tools include bundled themes, often aligned to specific industries or reporting styles.
Quality varies, but they can be helpful starting points.
Tools for creating and editing Power BI themes
Most users don’t write themes from scratch. Common tools include:
Theme generators
Web-based tools that let you configure colors, fonts, and visual defaults, then export a JSON theme:
Point GmbH Power BI Theme Generator
A lightweight generator focused on quick palette and styling setup. Useful if you want a simple theme without a lot of additional tooling or templates.Power BI Theme Gallery (Microsoft Fabric Community)
A lightweight generator focused on quick palette and styling setup. Useful if you want a simple theme without a lot of additional tooling or templates.
Live preview editors
Some tools allow you to see changes applied to a report layout in real time, making it easier to iterate.
PowerBI.tips Live Theme Editor
Includes real-time previews of visuals as you adjust theme settings. You can upload an existing JSON theme, modify it in the UI, and see how changes affect common visual types.
Manual JSON editing
Advanced users sometimes edit theme files directly to access properties not exposed in generators.
Themes can range from simple brand color palettes to highly customized visual definitions.
Summary
Power BI themes define how reports look, not how they work
They’re applied as JSON files at the report level
Themes help enforce consistency and branding
You can download themes from community galleries or build your own
Most teams combine themes with good report design practices
Used well, Power BI themes reduce design friction and make reports easier to maintain at scale.
💡 Power BI on digital signage with Fugo
When Power BI reports are displayed on TVs or shared screens, consistent visual styling becomes more important. Themes help standardize report design, but Power BI itself isn’t designed to manage how dashboards appear across physical displays.
Fugo’s Power BI app lets teams publish themed Power BI dashboards to digital signage in a controlled way. You can try it on a free trial or book a demo to see how teams deploy branded dashboards to screens.