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How to Change Power BI Theme to White

Cody Schneider••6 min read

Tired of browsing through dark, complex themes for your Power BI reports? Sometimes, the most effective design is the simplest. This tutorial will show you exactly how to change your Power BI theme to a clean, crisp white, making your data visualizations clear and easy to read.

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Why Use a White Theme in Power BI?

Before we jump into the "how," let's quickly cover the "why." A minimalist white theme isn't just about aesthetics, it's a strategic choice for effective data communication.

  • Clarity and Readability: A white background provides the highest contrast for dark text and data visualizations, reducing eye strain and making your report instantly easier to understand.
  • Professionalism: Clean, simple designs look professional and modern. A white theme ensures that your data is the star of the show, without distracting colors or backgrounds.
  • Better Focus: By removing visual clutter, you guide your audience's attention directly to the key insights in your charts and graphs.
  • Easy Branding: A neutral white canvas makes it incredibly simple to incorporate your company's brand colors into your charts without them clashing with the background.

Method 1: The Quickest Fix - Using a Built-In Light Theme

Power BI comes with several pre-installed themes, and a few of them can get you a white or light-colored background in just two clicks. This is the fastest way to get started.

  1. Open your report in Power BI Desktop.
  2. Navigate to the View tab on the top ribbon.
  3. In the Themes section, click the dropdown arrow to expand the theme gallery.
  4. Hover over the themes to preview them. The Default theme is already a great starting point with a white background. The Classic or Innovate themes also offer clean, light-colored options.
  5. Click on the theme you prefer, and your entire report will update automatically.

This method is perfect for a quick change, but you might find that some elements - like title backgrounds or default chart colors - don't perfectly match the pure white look you're going for. For more control, you'll need to customize.

Method 2: Fine-Tuning with the "Customize Current Theme" Option

If the default themes are close but not quite right, Power BI allows you to customize almost every visual element without writing any code. This is where you can truly dial in your white theme.

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Step 1: Access the Customization Pane

In the View tab, click the dropdown arrow in the Themes section again. This time, select Customize current theme at the bottom of the menu.

This will open a dialog box with all the customization options you need.

Step 2: Adjust Colors and Text

Let's go section by section to create our white theme:

  • Name and colors: At the top, you can rename your theme. The most important settings here are the primary colors. For a clean white theme, set Color 1 (your primary foreground color) to a dark gray like #333333 or pure black #000000. Set your neutral colors to shades of gray. This ensures that when Power BI automatically applies colors, they have good contrast.
  • Text: In this section, you can set the default text properties.

Step 3: Set Visual, Page, and Pane Backgrounds

This is the most critical part for achieving a consistent white look.

  • Visuals: Here you can control the default settings for every chart and table.
  • Page:
  • Filter pane: Don't forget this part! Set the Background color to white and the Font and icon color to your dark foreground color to make everything match.

Once you've made these changes, click Apply. Your report should now have a clean, consistent white theme across every element.

Method 3: Maximum Control and Reusability with a JSON Theme File

For those who want pixel-perfect control or need to share a standard company theme with their team, creating a custom theme JSON file is the most powerful method. It sounds technical, but it’s simpler than you might think.

What is a JSON Theme File?

A JSON file is just a plain text file that defines all of Power BI's formatting options. By editing this file, you can control everything - from the color palette to the font size in a tooltip.

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Step 1: Export Your Current Theme as a Starting Point

The easiest way to start is to not start from scratch. Use the steps from Method 2 to get your theme looking mostly correct. Then, go to View > Themes dropdown > Save current theme. Power BI will prompt you to save a JSON file.

Step 2: Edit the JSON File

Open the saved JSON file in a simple text editor like VS Code or even Notepad. You'll see code that looks something like this:

{ "name": "Custom White Theme", "dataColors": [ "#333333", "#88AACC", "#B9B9B9", "#5E87B5" ], "background": "#FFFFFF", "foreground": "#333333", "visualStyles": { "": { "": { "background": [{ "show": true, "color": { "solid": { "color": "#FFFFFF" } } }], "border": [{ "show": true, "color": { "solid": { "color": "#F0F0F0" } } }] } }, "page": { "*": { "background": [{ "color": { "solid": { "color": "#FFFFFF" } } }], "outspace": [{ "color": { "solid": { "color": "#FFFFFF" } } }] } } } }

Here’s a quick guide to the important parts:

  • "name": The name of your theme.
  • "dataColors": An array of hex codes used in your visuals. This is where you set your brand colors.
  • "background": Global background color. Set to #FFFFFF for white.
  • "foreground": Global foreground color, for things like axes and gridlines. Set to a dark gray, like #333333.
  • "visualStyles": This is where you define settings for specific visuals. The "*" wildcard applies the setting to all visuals unless a more specific style overrides it.

Go through the file and ensure any property related to color backgrounds is set to #FFFFFF and text colors are set to a dark color for contrast.

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Step 3: Import Your Custom Theme

After saving your changes to the JSON file, it's time to apply it.

  1. In Power BI Desktop, go to the View tab.
  2. Click the Themes dropdown.
  3. Select Browse for themes.
  4. Locate and open your saved JSON file.

Power BI will instantly apply every setting from the file to your report. Now you have a reusable theme file you can apply to any new report or share with your colleagues for ultimate consistency.

Final Thoughts

Mastering themes transforms your Power BI reports from simple data dumps into polished, professional assets. Whether you're making a quick change with a built-in option, fine-tuning elements manually, or building a reusable JSON file, creating a clean white theme gives your data the perfect canvas to stand out and communicate clearly.

While tweaking themes in Power BI is a great skill, sometimes the whole process of pulling data, configuring charts, and formatting reports can feel like a chore. At Graphed, we built a tool to eliminate that busy work. Instead of spending hours in builders, you can simply connect your data sources and ask questions in plain English - like "Show me our top traffic sources by country on a map" - and our AI automatically generates clean, professional dashboards in seconds, so you can focus on insights, not formatting.

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