How to Change the Title of a Graph in Power BI

A graph with a vague or default title like "Sum of Sales by Month" doesn't do you any favors. A clear, descriptive title turns your chart from a simple visual into a compelling story that provides instant context. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know about changing and customizing graph titles in Power BI, from simple text edits to dynamic titles that update automatically based on user selections.

Why Your Graph Titles Matter More Than You Think

Before jumping into the how-to, let's quickly cover why this seemingly small detail is so important. A well-crafted title is one of the most critical elements of any dashboard. It's often the first thing a person reads, setting the stage for the data they are about to see.

• Clarity and Context: A good title immediately answers the question, "What am I looking at?" Instead of "Count of Users," a title like "New User Sign-ups by Traffic Source - Q3 2023" provides all the necessary context in a single glance.
• Storytelling with Data: Titles frame your data's narrative. "Monthly Churn Rate" is informational. "Churn Rate Decreased 15% Following New Onboarding Launch" tells a story and highlights a key insight directly in the title.
• Improved User Experience: When you share reports, your colleagues or clients might not have the same deep understanding of the data as you do. Clear titles guide them through the dashboard, making the information more accessible and reducing the chances of misinterpretation. They won't have to hunt for clues in axis labels or legends to decipher the chart's purpose.

Taking a few extra seconds to craft meaningful titles transforms your Power BI reports from a collection of charts into a strategic business intelligence tool. Now, let's get into the step-by-step process.

The Standard Method: Editing a Static Graph Title

This is the most direct way to change a graph title in Power BI. You'll be manually inputting the text, which is perfect for most standard charts and KPIs that don't need to change based on filters.

Here’s the breakdown:

1. Select Your Visual

First, click an empty space on the chart or graph you want to modify. You'll know it's selected when a bounding box with handles appears around it. When you select a visual, the "Visualizations" and "Data" panes to the right of your report canvas will update to reflect the specific data and settings for that chart.

2. Navigate to the "Format your visual" Pane

With your visual selected, look at the "Visualizations" pane. At the top of this pane, you’ll see three icons: "Add data to your visual," "Format your visual," and "Add further analysis to your visual."

Click on the middle icon, which looks like a paintbrush. This is the Format your visual pane, where you can control every aesthetic aspect of your graph, from colors and legends to titles and labels.

3. Open the "General" Tab and Find "Title"

Inside the "Format your visual" pane, you'll see two tabs: "Visual" and "General." Formatting options specific to the chart type (like bars or lines) are under "Visual," while universal options like the title are under the General tab.

Click on "General," and you’ll see a list of collapsible menus like "Properties," "Title," "Effects," etc. Click on Title to expand its options.

4. Customize Your Title Text and Formatting

Here’s where you have complete control. The Title menu presents you with a whole host of formatting options to make your titles clear and brand-aligned.

• Text: This is the most important field. By default, Power BI often creates a title by mashing together the names of the fields you used (e.g., "Sum of Revenue by ProductCategory"). You can delete this and type in whatever you want. Be specific! For example, "Total Revenue by Product Category (Last 12 Months)."
• Heading: You can apply semantic heading styles (H1, H2, H3, etc.) to your titles. This is great for accessibility and maintaining a logical document structure, though a Normal style is often sufficient for most chart titles.
• Font: Choose a font from the dropdown that matches your company's branding or your report's design. Power BI includes a wide variety of web-safe fonts.
• Font size: Adjust the size to ensure the title is prominent but not overwhelming. A good rule of thumb is to make titles slightly larger and bolder than axis labels.
• Text color: Change the font color. You can choose from theme colors, recent colors, or click "More colors..." to input a specific hex code to match your brand palette perfectly.
• Bold / Italic / Underline: Standard text styling options to add emphasis. Bolding the title is a common and effective practice.
• Background color: You can place the title within a colored block. This can help the title stand out, especially on a busy dashboard background.
• Horizontal alignment: Align your title to the left, center, or right of the visual. Center alignment is a popular default choice.
• Text wrap: If you have a long, descriptive title, turning this on will allow it to break into multiple lines instead of being cut off.
• Subtitle: Toggle this on to add a second line of text under your main title. This is hugely useful for adding secondary context, like specifying the date range or data source, without cluttering the primary title.

The Advanced Method: Creating Dynamic Titles with DAX

Static titles are great, but what if you want your title to automatically update when a user interacts with an on-page filter or slicer? For example, imagine a sales report with a slicer for different years. Instead of a static title like "Annual Sales," a dynamic title could change to "Sales for 2022," "Sales for 2023," and so on, as the user makes selections.

This is accomplished using DAX (Data Analysis Expressions), Power BI's formula language. It may sound intimidating, but creating a basic dynamic title for your graphs is surprisingly easy.

Step 1: Create a DAX Measure for Your Title

The first step is to create a "measure" that will hold our title text. From the "Home" or "Modeling" tab in the Power BI ribbon, click on New measure.

This will open the formula bar at the top of the screen. We're going to use the SELECTEDVALUE function. This function checks if only one value in a specific field is currently being filtered. If so, it returns that value, otherwise, it can return an alternate result. It's perfect for our slicer scenario.

Let's say we have a table called 'Orders' with a column for 'Region'. We can create a DAX measure that says "Sales for [Selected Region]".

In the formula bar, type the following DAX expression:

Dynamic Graph Title = "Sales Analysis for " & SELECTEDVALUE('Orders'[Region], "All Regions")

Breaking Down the Formula:

• Dynamic Graph Title = This is just the name we're giving our new measure.
• "Sales Analysis for " This is the static piece of our title. Make sure to include a space at the end inside the quotes.
• & The ampersand joins two pieces of text together.
• SELECTEDVALUE('Orders'[Region], "All Regions") This is the dynamic part. It looks at the 'Region' column in our 'Orders' table.

Once you've written the formula, hit Enter to save the measure. You will now see it in your "Data" pane, usually with a small calculator icon next to it.

Step 2: Connect the Measure to Your Graph Title

Now, we need to tell our graph to use this DAX measure as its title instead of manual text.

1. Select the visual whose title you want to make dynamic.
2. Go to the Format your visual pane (the paintbrush icon).
3. Navigate to General → Title.
4. Hover over the Text input box. To the right, you'll see a small fx button. This is for Conditional Formatting. Click it.
5. A dialog box will pop up titled "Title-text." In the "Format style" dropdown, choose "Field value."
6. In the "What field should we base this on?" dropdown below, find and select the DAX measure you just created ("Dynamic Graph Title").
7. Click OK.

That's it! Your graph title will now disappear from the manual input box and be controlled by the measure. Go ahead and test it out. If you have a slicer for the 'Region' column, click different regions and watch the title of your graph update in real time. This small touch makes your reports feel significantly more interactive and user-friendly.

Final Thoughts

You now have two powerful ways to manage your titles in Power BI. Whether you're making simple text changes to improve clarity or implementing dynamic DAX measures to build highly interactive dashboards, taking control of your graph titles is a fundamental skill for creating professional and effective reports.

Building dashboards, even in powerful tools, often involves a lot of manual clicks for things like formatting titles, tweaking labels, or connecting data. At Graphed, we’ve designed a different experience. You can sidestep the menu-diving by just describing the dashboard you need in plain English - like "Create a dashboard showing our Shopify sales vs. Facebook Ad spend by campaign for the last 90 days." Our AI handles the heavy lifting, connecting to your data and building a live, interactive dashboard for you in seconds, titles, charts, and all.