Apply conditional formatting in tables

and matrixes
• Article
• 06/15/2022
• 9 minutes to read
• 7 contributors

APPLIES TO: ✔️ Power BI Desktop ✔️ Power BI service

With conditional formatting for tables and matrixes in Power BI, you can specify
customized cell colors, including color gradients, based on field values. You can also
represent cell values with data bars or KPI icons, or as active web links. You can apply
conditional formatting to any text or data field, as long as you base the formatting on a
field that has numeric, color name or hex code, or web URL values.

To apply conditional formatting, select a Table or Matrix visualization in Power BI

Desktop or the Power BI service. In the Visualizations pane, right-click or select the
down-arrow next to the field in the Values well that you want to format.
Select Conditional formatting, and then select the type of formatting to apply.
Note

Conditional formatting overrides any custom background or font color you apply to the
conditionally formatted cell.

To remove conditional formatting from a visualization, select Remove conditional

formatting from the field's drop-down menu, and then select the type of formatting to
remove.
The following sections describe each conditional formatting option. You can combine
more than one option in a single table column.

Format background or font color

To format cell background or font color, select Conditional formatting for a field, and
then select either Background color or Font color from the drop-down menu.
The Background color or Font color dialog box opens, with the name of the field
you're formatting in the title. After selecting conditional formatting options, select OK.

The Background color and Font color options are the same, but affect the cell
background color and font color, respectively. You can apply the same or different
conditional formatting to a field's font color and background color. If you make a field's
font and background the same color, the font blends into the background so the table
column shows only the colors.
Color by color scale
To format cell background or font color by color scale, in the Format style field of
the Background color or Font color dialog box, select Gradient. Under What field
should we based this on?, select the field to base the formatting on. You can base the
formatting on the current field, or on any field in your model that has numerical or color
data.

Under Summarization, specify the aggregation type you want to use for the selected
field. Under Default formatting, select a formatting to apply to blank values.

Under Minimum and Maximum, choose whether to apply the color scheme based on
the lowest and highest field values, or on custom values you enter. Drop down and
select the colors swatches you want to apply to the minimum and maximum values.
Select the Add a middle color check box to also specify a Center value and color.

An example table with color scale background formatting on the Affordability column
looks like this:
The example table with color scale font formatting on the Affordability column looks
like this:

Color by rules
To format cell background or font color by rules, in the Format style field of
the Background color or Font color dialog box, select Rules. Again, What field should
we base this on? shows the field to base the formatting on, and Summarization shows
the aggregation type for the field.
Under Rules, enter one or more value ranges, and set a color for each one. Each value
range has an If value condition, an and value condition, and a color. Cell backgrounds or
fonts in each value range are colored with the given color. The following example has
three rules:

When you select Percent in this dropdown, you’re setting the rule boundaries as a
percent of the overall range of values from minimum to maximum. So, for example, if
the lowest data point was 100 and the highest was 400, the above rules would color any
point less than 200 as green, anything from 200 to 300 as yellow, and anything above
300 as red.

An example table with rules-based background color formatting based on Percent in

the Affordability column looks like this:
Color by rules for percentages

If the field the formatting is based on contains percentages, write the numbers in the
rules as decimals, which are the actual values; for example, ".25" instead of "25". Also,
select Number instead of Percent for the number format. For example, "If value is
greater than or equal to 0 Number and is less than .25 Number" returns values less than
25%.
In this example table with rules-based background color on the % revenue
region column, 0 to 25% is red, 26% to 41% is yellow, and 42% and more is blue:

Note

If you use Percent instead of Number for fields containing percentages, you may get
unexpected results. In the above example, in a range of percent values from 21.73% to
44.36%, 50% of that range is 33%. So use Number instead.

Color by color values

If you have a field or measure with color name or hex value data, you can use
conditional formatting to automatically apply those colors to a column's background or
font color. You can also use custom logic to apply colors to the font or background.

The field can use any color values listed in the CSS color spec
at https://www.w3.org/TR/css-color-3/. These color values can include:

• 3, 6 or 8-digit hex codes, for example #3E4AFF. Make sure you include the #
symbol at the start of the code.
• RGB or RGBA values, like RGBA(234, 234, 234, 0.5).
• HSL or HSLA values, like HSLA(123, 75%, 75%, 0.5).
• Color names, such as Green, SkyBlue, or PeachPuff.

The following table has a color name associated with each state:
To format the Color column based on its field values, select Conditional formatting for
the Color field, and then select Background color or Font color.

In the Background color or Font color dialog box, select Field value from the Format
style drop-down field.
An example table with color field value-based Background color formatting on
the Color field looks like this:
If you also use Field value to format the column's Font color, the result is a solid color
in the Color column:

Color based on a calculation

You can create a calculation that outputs different values based on business logic
conditions you select. Creating a formula is usually faster than creating multiple rules in
the conditional formatting dialog.

For example, the following formula applies hex color values to a new Affordability
rank column, based on existing Affordability column values:
To apply the colors, select Background color or Font color conditional formatting for
the Affordability column, and base the formatting on the Field value of
the Affordability rank column.

The example table with Affordability background color based on

calculated Affordability rank looks like this:
You can create many more variations, just by using your imagination and some
calculations.

Add data bars

To show data bars based on cell values, select Conditional formatting for
the Affordability field, and then select Data bars from the drop-down menu.

In the Data bars dialog, the Show bar only option is unchecked by default, so the table
cells show both the bars and the actual values. To show the data bars only, select
the Show bar only check box.

You can specify Minimum and Maximum values, data bar colors and direction, and axis
color.
With data bars applied to the Affordability column, the example table looks like this:
Add icons
To show icons based on cell values, select Conditional formatting for the field, and
then select Icons from the drop-down menu.

In the Icons dialog, under Format style, select either Rules or Field value.

To format by rules, select a What field should we base this

on?, Summarization method, Icon layout, Icon alignment, icon Style, and one or
more Rules. Under Rules, enter one or more rules with an If value condition and
an and value condition, and select an icon to apply to each rule.

To format by field values, select a What field should we base this

on?, Summarization method, Icon layout, and Icon alignment.

The following example adds icons based on three rules:

Select OK. With icons applied to the Affordability column by rules, the example table
looks like this:
Format as web URLs
If you have a column or measure that contains website URLs, you can use conditional
formatting to apply those URLs to fields as active links. For example, the following table
has a Website column with website URLs for each state:

To display each state name as a live link to its website, select Conditional
formatting for the State field, and then select Web URL. In the Web URL dialog box,
under What field should we based this on?, select Website, and then select OK.

With Web URL formatting applied to the State field, each state name is an active link to
its website. The following example table has Web URL formatting applied to
the State column, and conditional Data bars applied to the Overall rank column.
Totals and subtotals
You can apply conditional formatting rules to totals and subtotals, for both table and
matrix visuals.

You apply the conditional formatting rules by using the Apply to drop-down in
conditional formatting, as shown in the following image.

You must manually set the thresholds and ranges for conditional formatting rules. For
matrices, Values will refer to the lowest visible level of the matrix hierarchy.

Color-code based on text

Unlike in Excel, you can't color-code text values to display as a particular color, such as
"Accepted"=blue, "Declined"=red, "None"=grey. You create measures related to these
values and apply formatting based on those instead.

For example, StatusColor = SWITCH('Table'[Status], "Accepted", "blue", "Declined", "red",

"None", "grey")
Then in the Background color dialog box, you format the Status field based on the
values in the StatusColor field.

In the resulting table, the formatting is based on the value in the StatusColor field,
which in turn is based on the text in the Status field.

Considerations and limitations

There are a few considerations to keep in mind when working with conditional table
formatting:

• Any table that doesn't have a grouping is displayed as a single row that
doesn't support conditional formatting.
• You can't apply gradient formatting with automatic maximum/minimum
values, or rule-based formatting with percentage rules, if your data
contains NaN values. NaN means "Not a number," most commonly caused
by a divide by zero error. You can use the DIVIDE() DAX function to avoid
these errors.
• Conditional formatting needs an aggregation or measure to be applied to
the value. That's why you see 'First' or 'Last' in the Color by value example.
If you're building your report against an Analysis Service multidimensional
cube, you won't be able to use an attribute for conditional formatting unless
the cube owner has built a measure that provides the value.