How to Export Power BI Dashboard to PowerPoint

Creating a powerful dashboard in Power BI is a great first step, but the real value comes from sharing the insights with your team or stakeholders. Often, that means bringing your data into a presentation format like PowerPoint. This guide will walk you through the best methods for exporting your Power BI dashboard to PowerPoint, from simple static images to interactive, live-data slides.

Why Move Power BI Data into PowerPoint?

While Power BI is a fantastic tool for interactive data analysis, PowerPoint remains the go-to for structured storytelling and presenting to an audience. Here’s why you’d want to combine them:

• Storytelling: PowerPoint allows you to build a narrative arc around your data. You can add context, bullet points, and high-level takeaways to guide your audience through the information, turning charts into a compelling story.
• Audience Accessibility: Not everyone on your team or in your client meeting has a Power BI license or the familiarity to navigate a dashboard on the fly. Presenting the key visuals in a slide deck makes the insights accessible to all.
• Static Snapshots: Sometimes you need to capture a specific moment in time. Exporting a dashboard allows you to save a snapshot of your data from a particular day, week, or month for status reports or board meetings.
• Offline Access: If you're presenting in a location with unreliable internet, having a static offline version of your visuals in PowerPoint is a lifesaver.

Now, let's get into the practical methods for making this happen.

Method 1: The Direct "Export to PowerPoint" Feature

The most straightforward method is using Power BI's built-in export function. This process takes a static snapshot of each page in your report and places it on its own slide in a PowerPoint presentation. It's fast, simple, and great for generating handouts or static reports.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Open Your Report in Power BI Service: Log into your Power BI Online account (app.powerbi.com) and navigate to the report you want to export. This functionality is available in the Power BI Service, not the Power BI Desktop application.
2. Find the Export Option: In the top menu bar, click on Export. A dropdown menu will appear. Select PowerPoint.
3. Configure Your Export: A dialog box will pop up with a couple of options:

Choose your desired settings and click the blue Export button.

1. Download the File: Power BI will begin creating the PowerPoint file. This can take a few minutes depending on the complexity and size of your report. Once it's ready, you’ll receive a notification in the top right corner of your browser. Click the notification or the download prompt to save the .pptx file to your computer.

Pros and Cons of This Method

Pros:

• Quick and Easy: It takes just a few clicks to generate a full presentation.
• Consistent branding: The export uses your Power BI theme, ensuring the look and feel is preserved.
• Offline availability: The resulting file is a standard PowerPoint deck, accessible anytime without an internet connection.

Cons:

• Static Images: The visuals are exported as high-resolution images. You cannot interact with them, apply new filters, or drill down into the data within PowerPoint.
• One Page Per Slide: Each report page becomes a single slide, which might not be ideal if you want to highlight a specific chart or mix multiple visuals on one slide.
• No Underlying Data: The images don't contain the raw data, so you can't view the numbers behind a chart directly in PowerPoint.

Method 2: The Interactive Power BI Add-in for PowerPoint (The Best Way)

For a truly dynamic presentation, Microsoft offers a free Power BI add-in directly within PowerPoint. This lets you embed a live, fully interactive Power BI report or visual right onto a slide. Your audience can watch you filter, slice, and cross-highlight data in real-time during your presentation.

How to Install the Power BI Add-in

1. Open PowerPoint: Launch the desktop version of PowerPoint.
2. Navigate to 'Get Add-ins': Go to the Insert tab on the ribbon and click on Get Add-ins.
3. Search for Power BI: In the Office Add-ins store, use the search bar to look for "Microsoft Power BI."
4. Add and Trust: Click the Add button next to the official Microsoft Power BI add-in, then accept the license terms. The icon will now appear in your Insert ribbon under "My Add-ins".

How to Embed Live Data onto a Slide

1. Get the Power BI URL: In your web browser, open the Power BI report you want to present. Navigate to Share > Copy link from the top menu, or simply copy the URL directly from your browser's address bar. For a specific visual, you can hover over it, click the "..." more options menu, and select Share > Link to this visual.
2. Insert the Add-in in PowerPoint: In your PowerPoint presentation, go to the slide where you want the live data. Click Insert > My Add-ins and select the Microsoft Power BI add-in.
3. Paste Your URL: A Power BI placeholder object will appear on your slide. This object has a field where you can paste the URL you copied from the Power BI service. Paste the link into the box and click the Insert button.
4. Sign In and Interact: You may be prompted to sign in to your Microsoft account to grant PowerPoint access. Once loaded, your Power BI report page or visual will appear directly on the slide. You can now resize it and interact with it just as you would in a browser. Any slicers, filters, and cross-highlighting actions will work live.

Pros and Cons of This Method

Pros:

• Fully Interactive: You can answer follow-up questions on the spot by filtering the live data during your presentation.
• Always Up-to-Date: The data is pulled directly from the Power BI Service, ensuring you are always presenting the latest information.
• Focus on a Single Chart: You can embed just one specific visual from a busy dashboard, helping your audience focus.

Cons:

• Requires an Internet Connection: Because it’s pulling live data, this method will not work offline.
• Permissions Are Required: Everyone viewing the presentation (directly in PowerPoint) will need the appropriate Power BI permissions to see the data. If they don't have access, they will just see a login prompt.
• Potential Loading Time: Complex reports might take a moment to load when you advance to that slide.

Method 3: Taking a Screenshot (The Quick and Dirty Way)

Sometimes, all you need is a quick image of a chart to drop into an email or a draft presentation. In these cases, a simple screenshot gets the job done without any fuss.

You can use your computer's built-in tools:

• Windows: The Snipping Tool or Snip &amp, Sketch (shortcut: Win + Shift + S) lets you draw a box around the specific visual you want to capture.
• Mac: The shortcut Command + Shift + 4 lets you do the same, saving the image to your desktop.

Once you have the image file, you can easily insert it into your PowerPoint slide. While this method is the fastest, it's also the least professional. The image resolution may be low, and the visual remains completely static. It's best used for informal communication or internal drafts, not for formal client-facing presentations.

Best Practices for Your Presentation

Regardless of which method you choose, a few best practices will make your presentation more effective:

• Tell a Story: Don't just show a dashboard. Use PowerPoint's strengths to add titles, callouts, and summary bullets that explain what the data means. Use a slide before the chart to set the context and a slide after to summarize the takeaways.
• Simplify the View: A full dashboard can be overwhelming on a presentation screen. Before exporting or linking, use slicers in Power BI to filter down to the most critical information for your story.
• Know Your Audience: If your team members are all active Power BI users, the live add-in is a great collaborative tool. If you're presenting to external stakeholders, a static export is a safer, more reliable choice.
• Have a Backup Plan: Technology can fail. If you plan to present using the live add-in, always have a static backup. You can export the slide deck to a PDF or use the direct-to-PowerPoint export feature as a fallback in case the internet goes down.

Final Thoughts

Getting your Power BI insights into PowerPoint is a common final step in the reporting process. You can use the direct export for fast, static reports, or leverage the interactive add-in to bring your data to life during presentations. The right method depends entirely on your audience and your presentation goals.

At the end of the day, all of this manual exporting, sharing, and dashboard building takes time away from acting on insights. Creating reports shouldn’t feel like a chore. At Graphed, we automate this entire process. We connect to your data sources like Google Analytics, HubSpot, and Shopify, then let you build live, shareable dashboards just by asking questions in plain English. This lets you and your team get immediate answers and focus on what the data actually means instead of spending hours just getting it into the right format.