How to Edit Looker Studio Report
Your Looker Studio report isn't set in stone, it's a living document that needs to evolve with your campaigns, goals, and strategies. As your business questions change, your dashboards must change with them. This guide will walk you through exactly how to edit a Looker Studio report, covering everything from simple cosmetic tweaks to changing the very data your charts display.
Getting Started: Entering Edit Mode
First things first: you can't edit a report you're only viewing. The public or shared version of a Looker Studio report is interactive - you can hover over data points and use filters - but the underlying structure is locked. To make changes, you need to be in Edit Mode.
Look for the "Edit" button in the top-right corner of your screen. If you don't see this button, it means you only have "View" access to the report. You'll need to contact the report's owner and ask them for "Editor" permissions.
Once you click "Edit," the entire interface will change. You'll see a grid pattern on your report canvas, a new toolbar at the top with options like "Add a chart" and "Add a control," and a Properties Panel on the right-hand side. This panel is your command center for editing nearly every aspect of your report.
Editing Individual Charts and Widgets
Most of your editing work will happen at the individual component level - tweaking a specific bar chart, scorecard, or table to show the right information in the right way. Simply click on the chart you want to modify to select it. Once selected, its borders will be highlighted, and the Properties Panel on the right will update to show its specific settings.
The Properties Panel is divided into two main tabs: Data and Style.
Changing a Chart's Data
The Data tab is where you control what information a chart displays. Here are the core components you'll adjust:
Data Source: This tells you where the chart is pulling data from (e.g., your Google Analytics 4 property, a Google Sheet, or Google Ads). You can change a chart's data source here, but be careful - it will likely break the chart until you reconfigure the dimensions and metrics.
Dimensions: These are your categories - the "what." For example, City, Campaign Name, Device Category, or Date are all dimensions. To change the dimension a chart uses, click on the current one and select a new one from the list of available fields. For example, you could change a chart showing sessions by Country to show sessions by Landing Page instead.
Metrics: These are your numbers - the "how much." Metrics are the things you can count or measure, like Sessions, Revenue, Cost Per Click, or Conversions. Just like with dimensions, you can click on a metric to replace it. A common edit is swapping out Sessions for Total Users or changing a Cost metric to an ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) metric.
Date Range: By default, an element often inherits the date range set for the whole report. You can override this. Select "Custom" under the "Default date range" section to set a specific timeframe for just that one chart. This is useful for creating comparison charts, like a scorecard showing ‘Revenue Last 30 Days’ next to one showing ‘Revenue Year to Date’.
Filters: Filters allow you to narrow down the data within a single chart without affecting the whole report. For instance, you could add a filter to a pie chart to only show data from your paid search campaigns. To add or edit one, click "Add a filter" and define your rules (e.g., "Include" an "Ad Group" that "Contains" the word "Brand").
Improving a Chart's Style and Format
The Style tab is all about aesthetics and readability. A well-styled chart is easier to understand and makes your report look more professional. Once you click on an element, navigate to the Style tab to fine-tune its appearance.
Common Style Edits Include:
Colors and Fonts: Change the color of bars in a bar chart, the line in a time series graph, or the text in a scorecard. You can use your brand's specific hex codes for a consistent feel. Font size, color, and family are all adjustable here.
Axis and Gridlines: In charts with axes (like bar or line charts), you can edit the titles, font sizes, and ranges. You can also hide or show gridlines. For cleaner visuals, many people remove the gridlines and y-axis title if the data labels are already clear.
Labels and Legends: Decide whether to show data labels directly on your chart (e.g., the exact number on top of each bar). You can also control the position and appearance of the legend, which explains what different colors or symbols mean.
Background and Border: Change the background color of a specific chart to make it stand out or add a border radius for rounded corners. These subtle touches can dramatically improve the overall look of your dashboard.
Play around with these settings. A good rule of thumb is to prioritize clarity. If a style change makes the data harder to read, it's not a good change, even if it looks cool.
Adding New Components to Your Report
"Editing" a report often means adding new information. The toolbar at the top of the Edit Mode screen is your gateway to enriching your report.
Add a chart: This dropdown contains all available visualization types: tables, scorecards, time series charts, bar charts, pie charts, maps, and more. Select one, and a placeholder will appear on your report. From there, use the Properties Panel to connect it to a data source and select your desired metrics and dimensions.
Add a control: Controls make your report interactive for viewers. The most popular are the Date range control (lets users choose their own timeframe) and the Filter control (lets users filter the entire report by a specific dimension, like Campaign or Channel).
Add Text, Images, and Shapes: Use the Text tool to add titles, headers, and descriptions. This is essential for providing context. Use the Image tool to upload your company logo. Use Shapes (rectangles, circles) to visually group related charts or section off parts of your dashboard.
Managing Report-Level Settings: Layout and Theme
Instead of editing every element one-by-one, you can apply changes to the entire report for a consistent look and feel. In the Properties Panel, if you don't have any specific chart selected, you’ll see the settings for the current page. At the top of this panel, you will see a menu item for Theme and layout.
Theme
Under the "Theme" tab, you can choose from pre-built color and font palettes or create your own custom theme. Customizing a theme lets you define primary and secondary colors, font choices, and chart palettes. Setting this up first saves a ton of time and ensures every new chart you add will automatically match your brand guidelines.
Layout
The "Layout" tab controls the overall structure of your report pages.
Header visibility: You can choose if you want the header to always be visible, auto-hide, or initially be hidden.
Navigation: For multi-page reports, decide if page navigation should appear on the left, at the top, or as tabs.
Canvas size: Adjust the dimensions of your report. You can use standard sizes like "Screen (16:9)" or set a custom width and height. This helps ensure your report looks good on the screens it will most often be viewed on.
Managing your report's theme and layout is a key part of turning a collection of charts into a professional, cohesive dashboard.
Advanced Edits: Managing Your Data Source
Sometimes, your data itself changes, and you need to update Looker Studio to reflect that. In the main menu, go to Resource → Manage added data sources. From here, you can click "Edit" on any of your connected data sources.
One of the most common actions here is clicking the "REFRESH FIELDS" button in the bottom-left. You should do this if you've added, removed, or renamed a column in your underlying data (for example, in a connected Google Sheet). This action rescans the data source and updates the available fields you can use in your report. Without this step, your new data won't appear as an option in the Properties Panel.
Final Thoughts
Editing a Looker Studio report comes down to getting into Edit Mode and becoming comfortable with the properties panel. By learning how to change a chart's data, adjust its styling, add new components, and manage the overall theme, you can ensure your dashboards stay relevant and valuable tools for your business.
While mastering these menus is certainly empowering, the process of clicking, dragging, and searching for the right field can still be time-consuming. We built Graphed because we believe there's a faster way to get to your insights. Instead of hunting through style menus to change a chart header, you can just ask, "Add the title 'Audience Growth YoY' to this chart." Rather than manually creating filters, you instruct the AI to "Combine GA4 and Google Ads data to show me a full-funnel view of my top-performing campaigns." It turns a multi-step design process into a simple conversation, letting you build and edit powerful dashboards in seconds, not hours.