Question

Why does a Power BI report look different in Power BI Service compared to Power BI Desktop?

I've noticed that a Power BI report appears differently in Power BI Service than it does in Power BI Desktop, with some visuals or layouts not aligning as expected. What factors might cause discrepancies in the report appearance, and how can I ensure consistent display across both platforms?

Answer 1

• When observing differences in a Power BI report in Power BI Desktop versus Power BI Service, many reasons can be cited for these occurrences. Firstly, it can be attributed to the different rendering engines. The Power BI Desktop has an engine for rendering content within the desktop environment. However, the Power BI Service has an engine for rendering content over the web. This may create some differences in font rendering, alignment, and scaling of images, amongst other things, basically due to browser technology or the way things are positioned on the web as opposed to the local aspect.

• Geo locations and regional factors come into play as well. The Power BI Service undertakes these definitions and modifies date, number, and currency formats to the region the service offers or the area the viewer is accessing via their browser. When these settings are not the same as the display settings on the Power BI Desktop, it will lead to obvious differences. In order to avoid this, the regional settings should be made to be the same on the Desktop and the Service.

• Lastly, screen resolution and zoom settings may allow for the maintenance of variation of layouts. The desktop might show a visual differently based on the display DPI settings, while the Power BI Service changes the visuals based on browser and device screen sizes. To lessen this problem, use flexible layouts, do not fix the sizes of visuals, and avoid placing the report in the Power BI Service before changing it with the Power BI Desktop.

Answer 2

Differences in the desktop and the service version of Power BI can occur because of the following reasons:

Resolution and Screen Size: The alignment of different display resolutions visualizes effects on it.

Browser Rendering: How visuals appear in a browser may differ from how they are shown in the Power BI Service.

Performance Settings: Cached data or settings may not be used by Power BI Service as a Desktop.

Data Refresh: Both Desktop and Service should be checked to ensure the same data refresh settings.

Page Size and Layout: Double-check layout settings in both versions.

Test both platforms with the same data and settings to ascertain consistency.