Using Custom Format Strings in Power BI Desktop

Patrick walks you through how to use custom format strings in Power BI Desktop. From dates and time to numbers, he calls out some things to look out for.

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[alt-enter]

OMG! So helpful--for Excel too!! I often have been asked what do all those symbols mean in the custom formatting in Excel, and now I know.

[johnmatta]

Advanced Excel users will shine in using this functionality as it uses the same custim number formatting structure in Excel..love it

[camicami]

Hi,
Great video!
Can you have custom format use a column/measure instead of a hardcoded currency sign? Say you have different currencies.

[gates]

thank you for the videos. I am watching the series every day. Please explain the RLS for multiple rows. your help is always appreciated.

[kealkil]

Customer Formatting is great ... But you need to be able to set it differently on various visuals.

[autumnyoung]

How do you format text string, lets say you want to keep leading zero's, when you change to number it drops these values?

[manohara]

super, would like to know how do make one row as number another row as %

[lokeshtuteja]

Hi Patrick this formatting is working fine in table, card but not working fine when it comes to chart line line char, bar graph any suggestion or workaround.

[marwaayed]

I really hope that you give us more videos about Power BI Desktop 🤞🤞 And your T-Shirt is awesome 😍😍

[angelfish]

Thanks for this! This has helped me resolve my number formatting on a chart I have been struggling with!

[tomjoad]

For negative numbers, you have explained how to put number between brackets - Would you please let us know how to get a negative number colored in red instead of brackets? - Many Thanks Patrick!

[artemb.]

Your introducing of confusing content is something interesting and funny😅

[joefromdc]

Is it possible to change text within a new measure example: Comment = "Thank you". Can I change the color of the words? Can I move 'You' to a second line? etc

[Slyder]

Wow! I had no idea that you could manually customize the date format. I just came across an instance of where I wanted the date in the MMM yyyy format, but was surprised there was no "custom" format option under the modeling tab in the ribbon. There are quite a few other options, but not the one I needed. I had to settle for the full month name & year (MMMM yyyy) I would have never found the custom option under the Model view if it wasn't for your video. 🤦‍♂️ Thanks so much!!

[vpwl]

Is there a string that automatically formats numbers to show as K, M and B?

[aashisehrawat]

Wow thats a life saver. Can we also do something like this for different financial ratios? For example, PE multiple has "x" in the end. Can I get that in PBI?

[IRDSB]

Interesting vid as always! Could you use this technique to format a column with both thousands and millions values, with thousands shortened with an appended "K" and millions with an appended "M"? e.g 20, 500 becomes 20.5K and 3, 500, 000 becomes 3.5M. From what I understand you can't mix formats in cards, etc.

[claires]

This is such a helpful video. I have a data set with numbers where '15' means '15 Million' - can I use this technique to display the numbers correctly as $15, 000, 000

[deepanshuarya]

Hi Patrick,

I wanted to know if there is any option to sync slicer with Bookmarks ? Dynamic Bookmarks ?

Please make a video on the same if it is possible.

You are great in what you do !!!

Thanks,
Deepanshu

[davidcadman]

Great as usual Patrick - would be even better if the custom string itself could be a measure. I'm thinking of the scenario where you have a measure which shows different things based on a selection (e.g. Order Value, Average Basket Value, Product Quantity or Conversion Rate). You ideally want that measure to be formatting variously as $#, ##0, $#, ##0.00, #, ##0 or 0.0% depending on what's it's showing at the time. I know FORMAT can do this in say a Card, but if using the variable measure in other vizs we need it to be treated as numeric and FORMAT makes it a string. Maybe you can talk to your colleagues about this improvement?