Skip to main content
Microsoft Idea

Power BI

Needs Votes

Better data label customization

Vote (538) Share
Daniel's profile image

Daniel on 25 May 2016 04:06:06

When data labels are enabled on visualization types where data overlaps (such as clustered bar charts and line charts), there are occasions where data labels do not display, or it is difficult to tell which label corresponds to which bar/line. There should be better customization options for Data Labels, which would ease comprehension of various visualizations. In particular, for the varied types of bar charts:

- Label location: start of bar, middle of bar, end of bar, end of chart
- Label/Background colour matching: change the label's text or background to match the bar to which it corresponds
- Label Stacking? If a label would overlap with another, display both of them slightly offset, instead of only displaying one label.

Comments (59)
Daniel's profile image Profile Picture

Carol on 05 Jul 2020 23:30:39

RE: Better data label customization

I agree with all these comments. I need to be able to label must smaller slices than PBI currently allows. I also find myself taking a screenshot and labeling manually with an image editor. Bah!

Daniel's profile image Profile Picture

Power BI User on 05 Jul 2020 23:30:07

RE: Better data label customization

I have the same issue as Tian.
With chart type of "Line and Stacked Chart" the data labels often collide. I want to see data labels for only the bar and remove the label for the line, but there's no way to turn the display of a single data label.

Daniel's profile image Profile Picture

Power BI User on 05 Jul 2020 23:29:10

RE: Better data label customization

Same issue: Choose the data label position in line visual, with two or more lines. thanks

Daniel's profile image Profile Picture

HA_DS on 05 Jul 2020 23:29:02

RE: Better data label customization

Same issue. With 2 line graphs in one visual, where data points are close to each other, some data points with lower value show up above the other category with higher value! very annoying feature that I could not get over with different axis spacing and background labels etc. Should be able to move labels like in excel (this should have minimum excel level ability)

Daniel's profile image Profile Picture

TIan on 05 Jul 2020 23:27:54

RE: Better data label customization

With chart type of "Line and Stacked Chart" the data labels often collide. I want to see data labels for only the bar and remove the label for the line, but there's no way to turn the display of a single data label.

Daniel's profile image Profile Picture

SS on 05 Jul 2020 23:24:55

RE: Better data label customization

Would like to be able to turn off data labels for the line in a line, column combo chart as it is hard to tell which label goes to which part of the chart.

Daniel's profile image Profile Picture

Power BI User on 05 Jul 2020 23:24:13

RE: Better data label customization

Some time users want to see value along with % in total .

Daniel's profile image Profile Picture

Andrew T. on 05 Jul 2020 23:24:13

RE: Better data label customization

With chart type of "Line and Stacked Chart" the data labels often collide. I often want to see data labels for only the bar or the line but not both, but there's no way to turn the display of a single data label.

Daniel's profile image Profile Picture

Niels Mortensen on 05 Jul 2020 23:23:15

RE: Better data label customization

Also, it would be great, if you could display the values of a different column (typically text) instead of the numerical value, as you can in a standard Excel chart.

Daniel's profile image Profile Picture

Power BI User on 05 Jul 2020 23:22:40

RE: Better data label customization

Add a feature to this. When you drill down the hierarchy you can chose to view it or not.

If I for example have a date table I can put month number on top of the hierarchy and month name at the bottom, drill down the hierarchy so I get lables that say "1 January" "2 February" etc. If I could get a simple switch to turn off some of the lables so I just get the January part.

Another case is showing the latest 18 months, for that I need monthkey, Month Name, and year in my X axis, giving me labels like this:
201701
January
2017