Display units to none for all visuals with a custom report theme

Dynamic format strings for measures and dynamic format strings on calculation groups only really has one natural enemy in the report. Public enemy number 1 for dynamic format strings is display units setting on visuals!

Lately I've been exporting themes for reports, and I realized I could have solved my own problems with a few lines of json. Here is the custom theme, which can be used on its own or incorporated into your own custom theme, to turn all visuals display units to none.

{
  "$schema": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/powerbi-desktop-samples/main/Report%20Theme%20JSON%20Schema/reportThemeSchema-2.149.json",
  "name": "DisplayUnitsNone",
  "visualStyles": {
    "*": {
      "*": {
        "*": [
          {
            "displayUnits": 1,
            "labelDisplayUnits": 1,
            "titleDisplayUnits": 1,
            "detailDisplayUnits": 1,
            "valueDisplayUnits": 1,
            "secLabelDisplayUnits": 1,
            "titleLabelDisplayUnits": 1
          }
        ]
      }
    },
    "cardVisual": {
      "*": {
        "*": [{
            "$id": "default",
            "displayUnits": 1,
            "labelDisplayUnits": 1,
            "titleDisplayUnits": 1,
            "detailDisplayUnits": 1,
            "valueDisplayUnits": 1,
            "secLabelDisplayUnits": 1,
            "titleLabelDisplayUnits": 1
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}
 

The * are wildcards that mean all visuals. Card visual needs the default preset to be specifically called out, so that's why it had to have its own section.

Power BI supports these display unit values:

Value	Display Mode	Example Output	Description
0	Auto	Varies	Power BI automatically chooses the best unit
1	None	1,234,567	Shows raw numbers without abbreviation
1000	Thousands	1.2K	Shows numbers in thousands with "K" suffix
1000000	Millions	1.2M	Shows numbers in millions with "M" suffix
1000000000	Billions	1.2B	Shows numbers in billions with "B" suffix
1000000000000	Trillions	1.2T	Shows numbers in trillions with "T" suffix
-1	Custom	Varies	Uses custom format string (some visuals only)

Different display unit properties work in different contexts:

Property Name	Context	Custom Option (-1)	Used In
labelDisplayUnits	Standard axis and data labels	❌ No	Axis labels, data labels, general formatting
detailLabelDisplayUnits	Detail labels in callouts/tooltips	✅ Yes	Callout value formatting, detail displays
titleLabelDisplayUnits	Title labels	✅ Yes	Callout title formatting, heading displays
dataLabelDisplayUnits	Reference line data labels	❌ No	Reference line label formatting

Each of the display units' settings also have a precision setting if you wanted to set that too.

            "precision": 2,
            "labelPrecision": 2,
            "titlePrecision": 2,
            "detailPrecision": 2,
            "valuePrecision": 2,
            "secLabelPrecision": 2,
            "titleLabelPrecision": 2

You may be wondering, what is the display units setting? Well, it's a setting in the formatting of each visual to show a number in a shorter way on axis and labels.

In simple cases it's fine, and helpful. Simple as in it doesn't have a dynamic format string and the numbers are closer in range. Here it's picked millions with M:

If I select something with a smaller range the visual does update. Now showing thousands in K.

In both of these scenarios, the visual has to pick one style and go with it.

This means the first drawback in a simple scenario is if there is a large gap between the numbers it can only pick 1000s (1K), 1000000s (1M), or 1000000000s (1B) and it has to then pick something not helpful for all values. Here I have no idea what those small numbers are at the beginning of the line are without checking the tooltip.

So here we can use a dynamic format string to make this a better experience. I create a new measure for Sales amount sum and change the format to dynamic.

So far, so good. Note this example is close to the display unit's functionality but you can do whatever you want in a dynamic format string expression!

Except having the dynamic format string measure in the visual with display units set to auto causes this experience! Now all numbers are awful! 😔

This fix here is to turn display units to none on the visual.

Now we see the data labels showing different formats based on individual data points range, which is what we wanted!

But now I have a new problem. Every visual I add will have to have display units set to none, and they are auto by default! This is where the theme at the beginning of this post comes into play. Now I can ensure all visuals start with display units set to none. I can still opt into other display unit settings for a specific visual too, if I needed to.

More info on those dynamic format strings is here: Create Dynamic Format Strings for Measures in Power BI Desktop - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

And more info on the custom theme json file and how to add it to your report is available here: Use report themes in Power BI Desktop - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Themes are really powerful, giving you control over every formatting setting and now even includes multiple presets too.