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Get started creating paginated reports in the Power BI service

APPLIES TO: Power BI service Power BI Report Builder Power BI Desktop

This article describes how to start creating a paginated report in the Power BI service. Use this feature to create paginated reports in any workspace in the Power BI service, including workspaces that aren't in a Power BI Premium capacity.

To create a paginated report from the Power BI service, you can start in a number of places:

Prerequisites

License requirements for Power BI paginated reports (.rdl files) are the same as for Power BI reports (.pbix files).

List view in the Power BI service

  1. Go to list view for any workspace, including My Workspace.

  2. Select More options (...) for a Power BI semantic model, and then select Create formatted table.

    Screenshot of Create paginated report in the Power BI service.

  3. Create your paginated report.

Data hub view in the Power BI service

  1. Go to Data hub view in the Power BI service.

  2. Select More options (...) next to a dataset > Create paginated report.

    Screenshot of Create paginated report in the Data hub.

  3. Create your paginated report.

The Dataset details page in the Power BI service

  1. Select a dataset in the Data hub view of the Power BI service.

  2. Under Visualize this data, select Create a report > Paginated report.

    Screenshot of Paginated report on the Dataset details page.

  3. Create your paginated report.

Power BI Desktop

  1. Open Power BI Desktop, and on the Insert tab, select Visual gallery. Scroll down to the Other section and select Paginated report.

    Screenshot of creating a paginated report in Power BI Desktop.

  2. In the visual, select Create paginated report.

    Screenshot of select Create paginated report.

    The Power BI service opens.

  3. In the Choose the data you want to connect window, filter or browse to the dataset you want, and select Connect.

    Screenshot of Choose the data you want to connect.

  4. Create your paginated report.

Use paginated reports with Power BI reports

While you can't convert a Power BI report into a paginated report or add paginated report pages to an existing .pbix file, you can integrate them in your workspace:

  1. Create the paginated report separately using one of the methods described in this article.
  2. Publish both reports to the same workspace in the Power BI service.
  3. Link between reports: Add buttons or links in your Power BI report that open the paginated report, or vice versa. For more information, see Add a link to a URL in a report.
  4. Include in an app: When you publish a workspace as an app, you can include both Power BI reports and paginated reports in the same app for unified distribution.
  5. Pin to dashboards: You can pin visuals from both report types to the same dashboard for a unified view.

By using this approach, you can leverage the strengths of both report types: interactive analysis with Power BI reports and pixel-perfect, printable layouts with paginated reports.

Considerations and limitations

  • You can create a paginated report in any workspace.
  • You can't create a paginated report from Power BI semantic models based on a live connection to SQL Server Analysis Service (SSAS) or Azure Analysis Service (AAS). In this case, you should connect your paginated report directly to the underlying SSAS/AS database.
  • The online editor doesn't replicate all existing Power BI Report Builder functionality.

Important

The web authoring experience creates new paginated reports. It doesn't add paginated report functionality to existing Power BI reports (.pbix files). Paginated reports and Power BI reports are separate report types with different capabilities and use cases. To create a paginated report, you must start a new report using one of the methods described in this article.