How to Insert Text in Power BI

A Power BI report packed with well-designed visuals is great, but charts and graphs alone don't always tell the full story. Sometimes, you need to add text to provide context, explain a complex metric, or call out a key takeaway. This guide will walk you through the simple and effective ways to insert both static and dynamic text into your Power BI reports, turning them from data dumps into clear, compelling narratives.

Why Bother Adding Text to Your Power BI Reports?

Before getting into the "how," it's helpful to understand the "why." Dashboards are a visual medium, so every word should have a purpose. Adding text thoughtfully can dramatically improve the clarity and impact of your reports.

• Provide Crucial Context: A line showing sales growth is good, but adding a text box that says, "Represents growth since launching the Q3 marketing campaign" makes it instantly understandable. Text bridges the gap between the data and the business activity driving it.
• Add Titles and Summaries: A clear title tells your audience what they're looking at. A short summary paragraph at the top of a report page can set the stage and summarize the most important findings before they even look at a single chart.
• Explain Calculations and Filters: If you're using a specific or custom metric, like "Engagement Score," a small text note can explain how it's calculated. Likewise, you can add text to clarify what a slicer or filter is doing to the data on the page.
• Highlight Key Takeaways: Don't make your audience work to find the main point. Use text to directly call out the most important insight, such as, "Note the significant drop in user churn for the European region in the last 30 days."

Method 1: Using the Text Box for Static Content

The most straightforward way to add text is with a Text Box. This is perfect for titles, headlines, descriptions, and any other piece of information that doesn't need to change with the data. Think of it as a sticky note you can place anywhere on your report canvas.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Open your report in Power BI Desktop.
2. Navigate to the page where you want to add text.
3. In the top ribbon, click on the Insert tab.
4. Click the Text box icon. A new, empty text box will appear on your canvas.
5. Click inside the text box and start typing. You can then drag the box to position it and resize it by dragging its corners or edges.

This method is simple and effective for adding permanent labels and annotations to your dashboards.

Formatting Your Text Box

An unstyled block of text can look out of place. Power BI gives you extensive control over the look and feel of your text boxes through the Format pane.

Once you select your text box, the Format pane will appear on the right. Here are a few key options you'll want to adjust:

• Text: Control the font family, font size, bold, italics, alignment, and color. Use these options to create a visual hierarchy. For example, your main title could be 24pt bold, while descriptive text is 12pt regular.
• Title: You can add an official title to the text box itself, which lives in a separate section from the body text. This is useful for creating structured annotations.
• Effects: Here, you can change the background color of the text box (to help it stand out or "pop"), adjust transparency, add a border, or even a drop shadow to give it some depth.

Pro Tip: Stick to a consistent formatting style. Use the same font colors and sizes for similar elements throughout your report to create a clean, professional look.

Method 2: Using a Card Visual for Dynamic Text

"Static" text is great, but what if you want your text to update automatically when a user applies a filter? This is where dynamic text comes in, and the easiest way to achieve this is by creating a simple measure and displaying it in a Card visual.

For example, let’s say you want a title that reads, "Showing Sales for United States" and you want "United States" to change to "Canada" whenever the user selects Canada in a country slicer.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Create a New Measure with DAX

We'll use a little bit of DAX (Data Analysis Expressions), but don't worry - it’s very straightforward. DAX is the formula language used by Power BI, and for this task, we just need to combine a static piece of text with a value from our data.

Go to the Data pane on the right, right-click on the table that contains the data you want to display (e.g., your 'Sales' table), and select New measure.

This opens the formula bar at the top. Here, you'll create a simple text measure. Let's create one that shows us which country is currently selected.

Selected Country Title = "Showing data for: " & SELECTEDVALUE('Sales'[Country], "All Countries")

Let's break down this formula:

• Selected Country Title = is simply the name of our new measure.
• "Showing data for: " is our static text string. Notice the space at the end.
• & is the concatenation operator. It joins the two pieces of text together.
• SELECTEDVALUE('Sales'[Country], "All Countries") is the magic part. It looks at the 'Country' column in our 'Sales' table. If only one country is selected (e.g., via a slicer), it returns that country's name. If multiple or no countries are selected, it returns the alternative text we provided: "All Countries".

Press Enter to save the measure. You will now see it in your Data pane with a small calculator icon next to it.

2. Add the Measure to a Card Visual

1. On your report canvas, go to the Visualizations pane and click on the Card icon.
2. A blank Card visual will appear. With it selected, find your new measure (Selected Country Title) in the Data pane and drag it into the Fields well of the Card.
3. Voila! The card now displays your dynamic text. Go ahead and test it out. Add a slicer for 'Country' and watch the text in the card update every time you make a selection.

Formatting Your Dynamic Text Card

A standard Card shows both the text value and a descriptive label underneath (the "Category label"). Since our text already includes a description, this label is often redundant.

• Select your Card visual.
• Go to the Format visual section in the Visualizations pane.
• Find the Category label toggle and switch it to Off.
• Go to the Callout value section to format the actual text - you can change the font, size, and color to match your report's design.

Advanced Technique: Conditional Text with IF Logic

You can make your dynamic text even smarter by adding conditional logic with an IF function in your DAX measure. This allows you to display different text messages based on your data meeting certain criteria.

For example, you could show one message if sales targets are being met and another if they aren't.

Let's assume you have a measure called [Total Sales] and another called [Sales Target].

Create a new measure with the following formula:

Sales Performance Status = IF([Total Sales] > [Sales Target], "✓ Performance on Track!", "⚠️ Below Target. Review campaign spend.")

This formula checks if [Total Sales] is greater than [Sales Target]. If it is, it returns the positive text message. If not, it returns the warning message. Drop this new measure into a Card visual, and you'll have an instant, at-a-glance status indicator that automatically keeps your team informed.

Final Thoughts

Learning how to add both static and dynamic text is a small skill that has a massive impact on the quality of your Power BI reports. It elevates your dashboards from simple collections of charts into focused analytical tools that guide your audience, provide necessary context, and deliver insights with absolute clarity.

While Power BI is an incredibly powerful tool for those with the patience to master it, not everyone has weeks to learn DAX or configure complex reports. At Graphed, we created a solution where you can skip the steep learning curve entirely. We enable teams to connect their data sources like Google Analytics, Shopify, and Salesforce, and then simply ask for the dashboards and reports you need in plain English. Instead of building visuals and writing formulas by hand, you can just ask, "Show me a dashboard of sales performance by rep for this quarter," and get a live, interactive report in seconds.