What are Bookmarks in Power BI?
Bookmarks are commonly used a feature in most of the applications such as any browser like to go to the previous configured or saved the page, similar in power bi we use bookmarks to go to the previous configured of any data page or report page and it will be in the same way including the filters and visuals.
Bookmark is the term generally used with the web URL link to go back to the bookmarked link straight away. A similar concept of Bookmark is integrated with Power BI as well, however, not to go to any URL link but to capture the current view of the visualization and once you click on the created bookmarked icon you can go back to the captured screen or visualization.
Don’t think that bookmark is a screenshot kind of a feature but it is an advanced interactive tool available in Power BI to play with the data insights.
This kind of interactivity with the data is possible in combination with “Bookmarks, Selection Pane, and Buttons”.
How to Create Bookmarks in Power BI?
Now we will show you in simple what bookmark is. For example, we have this below column chart for “city-wise” sales values.
Note: Import Data from Excel to Power BI and create a chart.
Copy and paste the data directly to Power BI or you can copy the data to excel file and then import to Power BI as Excel file reference. So you can download the excel workbook template from the below link.
As a reader, I don’t want to see this chart instead I want to view a line chart, and someone wants to view a horizontal bar chart. So, here we have three requirements, instead of showing all the three charts, we will create a bookmark of each chart which will assign a bookmark to toggle between charts as per the selection made by the users.
Follow the below steps to create bookmarks in Power BI.
Step 1: Copy and paste the already created column chart on top of the same chart and change the chart type to “Bar Chart”.
Step 2: Copy one more and paste on the existing chart itself and change the chart type to “Line Chart”.
Now we have three charts on top of each together.
Step 3: Go to the “View” tab and check the box “Selection Pane” to view “Selection Pane” to the right.
Step 4: Now from “Selection Pane” we can hide and unhide the charts we have created. Click on the “eye” icon in the “Selection Pane” to hide or unhide. I have hidden two “eye” icons and now in the report view, we can see only one chart i.e. “Column Chart”.
Step 5: I have downloaded the following three types of chart visuals from the internet. And we need to insert these images to Power BI.
Step 6: Go to the HOME tab click on “Image”. This will ask you to choose the image from the saved location, so choose the image from your folder. It will insert one image at a time, so repeat the above step and insert all three images.
Step 7: Now go to the “View” tab and check the box “Bookmarks Pane”.
You can see the “Bookmarks Pane” to the right side, just like “Selection Pane”.
Step 7: From “Bookmarks Pane” click on “Add”. This will insert the bookmark as “Bookmark1” double click on this and change the name to “Column Chart”.
Step 8: Now select the image of “Column Chart” it will open up the “Format Image” option to the right side. Under Format Image option turn on “Action” option, click on down arrow to see further options under this. From the “Type” drop-down list choose “Bookmark” it will open up one more “Bookmark” option from that choose the already named bookmark.
Like this repeat the same for “Bar and Line Chart” as well. Now all our power bi bookmarks are done.
As of now, we are seeing “Line Chart”, to see “Column Chart” hold Ctrl key and click on “Column Chart” image it will take you to the “Column Chart” view.
Like this, we can create bookmarks to capture the moments and toggle back to those steps with just a click of the button.
Note: Power BI dashboard file can also be downloaded from the link below and the final output can be viewed.
Things to Remember
- Bookmarks work with the other two options i.e. “Selection Pane” and “Button”.
- Once you bookmark the screen it will take you back to the original page even though that view no longer exists.
- We need to insert buttons or images from outside folders to assign the bookmarks.
Recommended Articles
This has been a guide to Power BI Bookmarks. Here we discuss how to create bookmarks in Power BI to go back to the captured screen or visualization with the help of an example. You can learn more from the following articles –
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