Apply and customize a theme

Theme controls report-wide defaults

A report theme sets shared defaults for colors, text, visual styling, page settings, and filters. Use it when many visuals should follow one design system.

Understand the formatting layers

Direct visual formatting stays in place when you switch themes until that visual is reset.

Customize the current theme

Customize theme changes report-wide colors, text, visual properties, page styling, and filter formatting. Organizational themes appear when an administrator publishes approved themes for the tenant.

Use JSON for finer control

Custom themes can be imported or exported as JSON. JSON can define theme colors, structural colors, text classes, and visual styles. Power BI validates imported theme files before applying them.

Know what reset does

Resetting the report theme returns the report to its base theme but keeps direct visual formatting. Resetting an individual visual returns it to the current theme defaults and can also remove conditional or data-bound formatting.

Exam clue: theme for consistency, direct formatting for exceptions, reset when an override blocks the theme.