How to Insert Page Break in Power BI Report Builder

Creating a report that reads like a story is a crucial skill, and sometimes that means knowing exactly when to turn the page. Inserting page breaks in Power BI Report Builder allows you to control the flow and presentation of your data, transforming a long, scrolling report into a polished, professional document. This article will walk you through exactly how to add page breaks to your paginated reports, both between items and within data groups.

What Are Paginated Reports and Why Do Page Breaks Matter?

Unlike standard interactive Power BI reports that are built for on-screen exploration, paginated reports are designed with a specific layout in mind - optimized for printing or generating fixed-layout documents like PDFs. Think of multi-page invoices, detailed financial statements, or operational reports that need to be formatted perfectly, page after page.

In this context, page breaks are your best friend for controlling a report's structure and readability. Without them, you risk having:

• A table splitting awkwardly across two pages, leaving a header on one page and the corresponding data on the next.
• A chart meant to introduce a new section getting buried at the bottom of the previous page.
• Different data groups, like sales data for different regions, blending together without a clear separation.

Properly placed page breaks ensure each section of your report starts exactly where you want it to, creating a clean, logical, and much more professional presentation for your stakeholders.

Understanding Where You Can Add Page Breaks

In Power BI Report Builder, you primarily add page breaks in two main places. Understanding the difference will help you choose the right method for your needs.

1. On a Report Item: You can force a specific item - like a chart, image, or an entire table - to start on a new page. This is useful when you want a dashboard-style element, like a summary chart, to have its own dedicated page at the beginning of a report section.
2. Within a Data Group: This is the most common and powerful use case. You can insert a page break between each instance of a group in a table or matrix. For example, if you have a sales report grouped by country, you can set it up so that the data for Canada is on one page, the data for Germany is on the next, and so on. This automatically creates a separate section for each group, no matter how many groups you have.

Now, let's get into the practical steps for applying each of these.

How to Insert a Page Break in Power BI's Report Builder: A Step-by-Step Guide

To demonstrate, we'll work with a common example: a sales report that includes a summary chart and a detailed table of sales data grouped by product category. Our goal is to place a break after the chart and another one between each product category in the table.

Part 1: Inserting a Page Break Between Report Items

Let's say your report starts with a pie chart summarizing total sales, followed by a detailed table. You want the table to always begin on page two. To do this, you'll place a page break on the table item itself.

1. Select the Item: Click on the table (or any report item) that you want to push to a new page. Make sure you see the border handles appear around the entire object.
2. Open the Properties Pane: If it's not already visible, go to the View tab in the top ribbon and check the Properties box. This will open a pane, typically on the right side of your screen.
3. Find the Page Break Options: In the Properties pane, scroll down until you find the section called PageBreak.
4. Set the Break Location: Click on the dropdown for the BreakLocation property. By default, it's set to None. Change this to Start.

That’s it! Now, when you run the report, Report Builder will render the chart on the first page, and then automatically insert a hard page break before starting to render the table, forcing it onto the next page.

Part 2: Inserting a Page Break For Each Group in a Table

This is where the real power of paginated reports shines. Let's say your detailed sales table is grouped by ProductCategory. You want each category - like "Clothing," "Accessories," and "Bikes" - to start on its own page.

1. Select the Table: Click anywhere on your table or matrix to make it the active object.
2. Open the Grouping Pane: Look for the Grouping pane at the bottom of your design window. If you don't see it, go to the View tab and check the Grouping box. This pane shows the structure of your Row Groups and Column Groups.
3. Access the Group Properties: In the Row Groups section, find the group you want to "break" by. In our case, this is the ProductCategory group. Right-click on it and select Group Properties from the context menu.
4. Navigate to the Page Breaks Tab: A 'Group Properties' window will pop up. On the left-hand side, click on the Page Breaks tab.
5. Enable the Page Break: Check the box labeled Between each instance of a group. This tells Report Builder to insert a page break after it finishes rendering the data for "Accessories" and before it starts rendering the data for "Bikes," and so on.
6. Click OK: Press the OK button to save your changes and close the window.

Now, when you preview the report by clicking Run on the Home ribbon, you will see that each product category occupies its own page(s). You can use the navigation arrows in the preview toolbar to jump from page to page and confirm that your breaks are working correctly.

Advanced Tips for Professional Page Layout

Once you've mastered the basics, you can refine your reports even further with a few advanced settings found in the same 'Group Properties' menu.

Reset Page Numbering for Each Group

Imagine you're creating a master report that needs to be split up and sent to different department heads. It would be much more professional if each department's section started with "Page 1 of X" instead of, for example, "Page 27."

To do this: In the Group Properties > Page Breaks window, simply check the box for Reset page number. This powerful feature will restart the page count every time a new group instance begins.

Keep a Group on a Single Page

To prevent a small group's data from being awkwardly split with a few rows at the bottom of one page and the rest on the next, you can tell Report Builder to try its best to keep them together.

To enable this: In the Group Properties > General tab, there's a section for page-break options. Check the box for Keep together on one page if possible. This won't work for huge groups that simply won't fit, but it's perfect for fine-tuning smaller groups and maintaining readability.

Use Rectangles as Containers

What if you want a grouping header, a chart, and a small table for each group to always stick together - and have a page break after the whole collection?

The solution is to use a Rectangle. You can insert a Rectangle from the Insert tab.

1. Drag a Rectangle into your table's group cell.
2. Place all the report items you want to keep together (text boxes, charts, etc.) inside the Rectangle.
3. Now, instead of applying page break properties to the table or chart, you can apply them to the Rectangle item itself from the Properties Pane, just like we did in Part 1.

This groups your items visually and functionally, giving you precise control over complex layouts.

Final Thoughts

Mastering page breaks in Power BI Report Builder is a fundamental skill that elevates your work from a simple data dump to a professional, ready-to-distribute document. By thoughtfully controlling where new pages begin, you can guide your audience through the data logically and ensure your insights are presented with clarity and impact.

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