How to Change Title of Chart in Power BI

Changing the title of a chart in Power BI can seem trivial, but a well-crafted title does more than just label your data - it tells a story. This guide will show you how to quickly change your chart titles, both by manually entering static text and by creating dynamic titles that update automatically based on user selections.

Why Good Chart Titles Matter

Before jumping into the "how-to," let's quickly cover the "why." Your chart titles are often the first thing a report viewer reads. They set the context and guide the viewer's interpretation of the data. A title like "Sales" is okay, but "Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) - Q3 2024" is far more effective. It immediately communicates what is being measured, the metric used, and the relevant time period.

Clear, descriptive, and consistent titles transform a dashboard from a collection of charts into a cohesive and professional report that executives and team members can understand at a glance. Taking a few extra seconds to craft a good title makes your entire report more valuable.

How to Change a Chart Title Manually

The most straightforward way to change a title is by manually editing the text and formatting options in the Visualizations pane. This is perfect for charts that don't need to change based on user interaction.

Let’s walk through the steps with a simple example, like a bar chart showing sales by country.

Step 1: Select Your Visual

First, click on the chart (the visual) on your Power BI report canvas that you want to modify. When you select it, you'll see a border appear around it, and the panes on the right side of the screen will update to reflect that visual's settings.

Step 2: Navigate to Format Options

With the visual selected, look at the Visualizations pane on the right. You'll see a few icons at the top of this pane. Click on the one that looks like a paintbrush, which is the "Format your visual" tab. This is where you can customize the appearance of your chart, from colors and labels to, of course, the title.

Step 3: Find and Expand the Title Settings

Once you're in the "Format your visual" tab, you'll see two sections: Visual and General. The title settings are located under the General tab. Click on "General" to expand its options.

Here you'll find the Title section. It's usually enabled by default, but if your chart doesn't have a title, you may need to click the toggle to turn it on. Click the little arrow next to "Title" to expand all the available formatting options.

Step 4: Update the Title Text and Formatting

Now you can customize everything about your title. The field under the Text heading is where you'll type your new title. As you type, you’ll see the title update on your chart in real-time.

But you can do much more than just change the words. Here are the core formatting options you can adjust:

• Text: This is where you write your new static title. For example, "Total Sales by Country."
• Heading: Changes the HTML header tag for accessibility and SEO on published reports (usually fine to leave as is).
• Font: Choose your favorite font family, font size, and style (bold, italic, underline).
• Text color: Change the color of the font itself. It's a good practice to use a color with high contrast against your report background.
• Background color: Add a colored background specifically behind the title text. This can help it stand out, especially on a visually busy dashboard.
• Horizontal alignment: Align your title to the left, center, or right of your visual. Center alignment is often the default and usually looks best.
• Text wrapping: If your title is long, turning this on will allow it to wrap onto a second line instead of being cut off.
• Subtitle: Toggle this on to add a second line of text below your main title. This is great for adding context like "Last 3 months" or "(in Thousands USD)."
• Divider: Adds a visual line below your title and subtitle to cleanly separate it from the chart area.
• Spacing: Adjusts the vertical space between the title and the chart itself.

Adjust these settings until you have a title that is clear, readable, and consistent with the design of your report.

How to Create Dynamic Chart Titles

Manually editing titles is great, but what if you want your title to automatically update when a user selects a filter or slicer? For instance, if a user filters the report for "Canada," you want the chart title to say "Total Sales for Canada." This is where dynamic titles come in, and they are created using DAX (Data Analysis Expressions).

What is a Dynamic Title?

A dynamic title is a title that is powered by a measure instead of static text. This measure uses DAX functions to read the current filter context - like the value selected in a slicer - and constructs a title string based on that selection.

Let's build one.

Step 1: Create a Slicer

To have something to interact with, first add a slicer to your report. For our example, let's create a slicer for the Country field. This will allow the user to select one or more countries to filter the data.

1. Click on a blank space on your report canvas.
2. In the Visualizations pane, select the Slicer icon.
3. In the Data pane, drag your desired field (e.g., Country) into the "Field" well of the slicer.

You should now have a list of countries that you can select.

Step 2: Write a DAX Measure for the Title

Now, we need to create a new measure that will generate our title text. Don't worry if you're new to DAX, this one is fairly simple.

1. Go to the Home or Modeling tab in the Power BI ribbon and click New Measure.
2. The formula bar will appear at the top of the canvas. Here, you'll write your DAX formula.

We will use the SELECTEDVALUE function. This function checks if a single value has been selected for a given column and returns that value. If no value or multiple values are selected, it can return an alternative result that you specify.

Enter the following formula into the formula bar:

Dynamic Title = "Total Sales for " & SELECTEDVALUE('Sales'[Country], "All Countries")

Here’s a breakdown of that simple formula:

• Dynamic Title = is the name of our new measure.
• "Total Sales for " is the static part of our title. Make sure to include a space at the end.
• & is the operator used to join two pieces of text together (concatenate).
• SELECTEDVALUE('Sales'[Country], "All Countries") is the core of the dynamic part. It checks the 'Country' column in our 'Sales' table.

Step 3: Connect the Measure to Your Chart Title

The final step is to tell your chart to use this new measure for its title instead of static text.

1. Select the same chart you want to make dynamic.
2. Go back to the Format your visual pane (the paintbrush icon), then navigate to General > Title.
3. Under the Text input box, you'll see a little button with "fx" on it. This is the Conditional formatting button. Click on it.
4. A dialog box titled "Title text" will appear. For the Format style, leave it as is. Under the next dropdown, labeled "What field should we base this on?", find and select the DAX measure you just created: Dynamic Title.
5. Click OK.

That's it! Now, test it out. Your chart title should say "Total Sales for All Countries." Click on a single country in your slicer, like "France," and watch the title magically change to "Total Sales for France." This small touch makes your reports feel interactive and professional, providing clear, immediate context to your users as they explore the data.

Final Thoughts

Mastering chart titles, from simple static text adjustments to creating powerful DAX-driven dynamic titles, is a fundamental step in making your Power BI reports clearer and more user-friendly. These techniques help ensure that your audience can always understand the context of the data they're viewing with just a quick glance.

While Power BI's capabilities are impressively deep, its learning curve can be steep for those who just need quick answers from their data. We built Graphed to remove this complexity. Instead of wrestling with DAX or navigating formatting panes, you can connect your data sources and simply ask questions in plain English, like "Show me a chart of total sales by country last quarter," and get an interactive dashboard built for you instantly.