How to Add Logo to Power BI Report

Adding your company logo to a Power BI report is one of the quickest ways to make your data look professional and on-brand. It’s a small detail that builds credibility and makes your dashboards feel like an official company asset. This tutorial will walk you through a few different ways to add logos to your Power BI reports, from the straightforward copy-paste method to more advanced dynamic techniques.

Why Add a Logo to Your Power BI Reports?

Before we jump into the steps, let’s quickly cover why this small step is so important. Consistently branding your reports isn't just about aesthetics, it adds real value by:

• Increasing Professionalism: A branded report instantly looks more polished and trustworthy than a generic one. It shows attention to detail.
• Reinforcing Brand Identity: When reports are shared internally or with clients, your logo keeps your brand top of mind and ensures consistency across all company communications.
• Improving User Experience: A familiar logo creates a cohesive experience for users, making them feel like they're in the right place and looking at official, sanctioned data.
• Clarifying Ownership: In large organizations or when working with clients, a logo clearly marks who created and owns the report, preventing confusion.

Method 1: Using the "Image" Object (The Standard Approach)

This is the most common and direct way to add a static logo to any page in your Power BI report. It’s simple, quick, and perfect for when you just need to place your logo on a title page or in the header of every page.

Here’s how to do it step-by-step in Power BI Desktop:

Step 1: Go to the Insert Tab Open your report in Power BI Desktop. In the main ribbon at the top of the window, click on the Insert tab.

Step 2: Select "Image" In the 'Insert' ribbon, you'll see a section called 'Elements'. Click the Image button. This will open a file browser window.

Step 3: Choose Your Logo File Navigate to the folder where your logo is saved. Select the image file and click Open. Power BI supports several common image formats, including:

• .PNG (Recommended for logos, as it supports transparent backgrounds)
• .JPG or .JPEG
• .GIF
• .BMP

Pro Tip: Use a PNG file with a transparent background. This allows your logo to sit cleanly on top of any background color or design you have in your report without an ugly white box around it.

Step 4: Position and Resize the Logo Once you click 'Open,' the logo will appear on your report canvas. You can then:

• Move it: Click and drag the image to place it where you want it, such as the top-left or top-right corner.
• Resize it: Click on the logo to select it, then drag the corner handles to make it larger or smaller. Hold the Shift key while dragging to maintain the original aspect ratio and prevent the logo from looking stretched or squashed.

Step 5: Format the Image (Optional) With the logo selected, the Format pane will appear on the right side of your screen. Here you can tweak the appearance with options like:

• Alt Text: Under the 'General' section, add descriptive text for screen readers, which is a great practice for accessibility.
• Style: Add a border, shadow, or visual header.
• Scaling: Choose how the image fits within its box ('Normal', 'Fit', 'Fill'). To avoid distortion, it's often best to resize manually while holding Shift.

You can copy and paste this logo onto other pages in your report to maintain consistency.

Method 2: Using a Custom Theme for Automatic Branding

If you create many reports and want to ensure every one starts with a consistent layout and branding, using a Power BI theme is a more efficient approach. A theme can automatically apply a page background, which could be an image that includes your logo perfectly positioned.

This method requires using a simple JSON file but is incredibly powerful for standardization.

Step 1: Convert Your Logo to a Base64 String Themes can’t directly link to an image file on your computer. Instead, you need to embed the image data directly into the theme file itself. The standard way to do this is by converting your image to a "Base64 string."

Don't worry, you don't need to know what that means. You just need to use a free online converter. Simply search for a "Base64 image encoder," upload your logo file, and it will generate a very long string of text. Copy this entire string.

Step 2: Create a JSON Theme File Open a plain text editor like Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac). Paste the following code into the editor:

{ "name": "My Company Theme", "visualStyles": { "": { "": { "outspacePane": [{ "backgroundColor": { "solid": { "color": "#FFFFFF" } }, "border": false }] } }, "page": { "*": { "background": [{ "image": { "name": "Logo", "scaling": "Normal", "url": "PASTE_YOUR_BASE64_STRING_HERE" } }] } } } }

Step 3: Add Your Base64 String Replace the placeholder text PASTE_YOUR_BASE64_STRING_HERE with the long text string you copied from the Base64 encoder. Make sure to wrap it in quotes. The full string must start with data:image/png,base64, (or a similar prefix depending on your image type) followed by the text.

Save the file with a descriptive name, making sure the extension is .json (e.g., company-theme.json).

Step 4: Import the Theme into Power BI Back in Power BI Desktop:

1. Go to the View tab in the ribbon.
2. Click the dropdown arrow under Themes.
3. Select Browse for themes.
4. Find and select the .json file you just saved.

Power BI will apply the theme, and your logo will appear as part of the background on every new page you create in that report. You might need to adjust report layouts to work around the logo's position.

Method 3: Dynamically Displaying Logos Based on Data

What if your report needs to show different logos depending on the data being viewed? For example, you might have a sales report that can be filtered by different brands or partner companies, and you want to display the correct logo for whatever brand is selected.

This advanced method lets you do exactly that.

Prerequisite: Your data source must contain a column with publicly accessible URLs pointing to a logo image for each entry (e.g., each brand or company).

Step 1: Set the Data Category to 'Image URL' Go to the Data view in Power BI (the grid icon on the left-hand panel).

• Select the table that contains your logo URLs.
• Click on the header of the column that holds these URLs.
• This will bring up the Column tools tab in the ribbon.
• In the 'Properties' section, click the Data category dropdown and select Image URL. This tells Power BI that the text in this column should be treated as links to images.

Step 2: Add a Visual to Display the Logo Switch back to the Report view (the bar chart icon).

• Add a Slicer to your report page and populate it with the brand or company names field. This will allow users to select an entry.
• Now, add a visual that can display images, such as a Table, Matrix, or a custom visual like Simple Image. A Table is the easiest built-in option.
• Drag your 'Image URL' field into the Table visual.

Now, when you select a company or brand from the slicer, the Table will filter and display the corresponding logo. You can format the table to hide the headers and borders so it just looks like a single, clean image object.

Best Practices for Logos in Power BI

No matter which method you choose, follow these tips to ensure your logos look clean and professional:

• Use a High-Quality File: Avoid a blurry or pixelated logo. Start with the highest resolution version you have available.
• Maintain the Aspect Ratio: Never distort a logo. Either hold 'Shift' while resizing or lock the aspect ratio in the Format pane to prevent stretching.
• Strategic Placement: Place the logo consistently, usually in a corner where it doesn’t block important visuals or KPIs. The top left or top right are standard choices.
• Think About Size: Don't make the logo the star of the show. It should be present but subtle, not so large that it distracts from the data.
• Fill Out Alt Text: Take ten seconds to add a description in the 'Alt Text' field. It makes your report more accessible to users with visual impairments.

Final Thoughts

Adding a logo is a simple yet effective step toward creating professional, credible, and polished Power BI reports. Whether you’re quickly inserting a single image or setting up a dynamic display based on user selections, branding transforms your dashboard from a simple collection of charts into an authoritative business tool.

Of course, building the report itself - connecting data sources, cleaning up numbers, and arranging visuals - can still be a time-consuming chore, especially with traditional BI tools. Here at Graphed, we've focused on eliminating that entire headache. We allow you to connect all your marketing and sales data sources (like Google Analytics, Shopify, or Salesforce) in just a few clicks and build entire dashboards in seconds simply by describing what you want in plain English. Instead of learning complex software, you can ask questions like "Show me my campaign ROI by channel" and get a live, interactive dashboard instantly. Give Graphed a try to see how simple data analysis can be.