Interface Overview
Definition
Power BI Desktop is the free authoring tool used to build reports before publishing them to the Power BI Service. Its interface is organized around three switchable views on the left-hand vertical bar, plus a ribbon and several docked panes.
The Three Views
graph LR A["Report View build visuals & pages"] <--> B["Data View inspect raw table data"] B <--> C["Model View manage relationships"] C <--> A
| View | Icon | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Report View | bar chart icon | the main canvas - drag fields onto visuals, design pages, add slicers |
| Data View | table/grid icon | see the actual rows of each loaded table, like a spreadsheet |
| Model View | diagram icon | see and edit relationships between tables visually |
Switch views constantly while building
A common workflow: check Data View to confirm a column’s actual values/type, jump to Model View to verify a relationship exists and has the right direction, then back to Report View to build the visual.
Key Panes (Report View)
| Pane | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Filters | page-level, visual-level, and report-level filters |
| Visualizations | pick chart type, drag fields into wells (Axis, Legend, Values, etc.) |
| Fields | list of all loaded tables and their columns/measures, checkboxes to add to the selected visual |
| Format (paint roller icon, inside Visualizations pane) | styling for the currently selected visual - colors, fonts, borders, titles |
| Analytics (magnifying glass icon) | trend lines, constant lines, reference lines for the selected visual |
Fields pane icons
A calculator icon (𝑓x-like) next to a field means it’s a measure (a DAX calculation); a plain column icon means it’s a column from the source data. See 08-Calculated-Columns-Tables-Measures for the distinction.
The Ribbon - Key Tabs
Home - Get Data, Transform Data, Refresh, Publish
Insert - add visuals, text boxes, shapes, buttons, new pages
Modeling - New Measure, New Column, New Table, Manage Relationships, Row-Level Security
View - Themes, Page view (fit to page/width/actual size), gridlines, Performance Analyzer
Optimize - Performance Analyzer, aggregations
Help - documentation, what's new
Pages & the Canvas
Bottom of the screen: page tabs, like sheet tabs in Excel
Right-click a page tab: Duplicate Page, Hide Page, Page Information
Hide pages that support other pages but shouldn't be seen
Drillthrough target pages or “helper” pages used only via bookmarks are commonly hidden (right-click tab > Hide Page) so end users never navigate to them directly, but they still function when triggered.
Status Bar (Bottom of Window)
Shows the currently selected visual’s summary stats (e.g. sum of a highlighted data point) and a zoom/page-fit control. Also where refresh progress and error messages briefly appear.
Selection Pane & Layer Order
View > Selection Pane (or right-click a visual > Selection Pane) shows every object on the current page as a list, with:
- Eye icon to toggle visibility (useful for bookmark-driven show/hide logic)
- Drag to reorder (controls which visual sits “on top” when overlapping)
See 12-Bookmarks-Buttons-Navigation for how the Selection Pane pairs with bookmarks to build toggleable layouts.
Keyboard & Mouse Shortcuts
Ctrl + C / Ctrl + V copy/paste a visual
Ctrl + click multi-select several visuals
Alt + Shift + arrow keys nudge a selected visual's position precisely
Ctrl + G group selected visuals together
F5 (or the Refresh button) refresh data from the source
Ctrl + Shift + drag duplicate a visual by dragging