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Building Multi-language Reports for Power BI in 2023

Headshot of article author Ted Pattison

It just got easier to create multi-language reports for Power BI. This is the result of several new enhancements to Power BI which simplify the process of localization and adding support for secondary languages.

First, Power BI recently added an essential function in DAX named USERCULTURE which provides the ability to write measures which implement report label translations dynamically.

Second, there are many properties for report visuals and shapes that can now be bound to measures which implement dynamic translations.

Third, Power BI recently introduced a powerful, new feature named Field Parameters which offer a much better foundation for implementing data translations.

I am happy to announce we’ve just released new guidance for building multi-language reports that embraces these new Power BI enhancements. This guidance has been designed to teach content creators using Power BI Desktop the skills required to add translations and multi-languages support to PBIX project files. You just need to learn a few key concepts about how Power BI translations work and you need to learn how to automate repetitive tasks that would take forever to complete manually. Once you understand how all the pieces fit together, you’ll be able to build multi-language reports for Power BI using a strategy that is reliable, predictable and scalable.

We understand that people have different learning styles. Some people like to read technical articles. Some like to watch videos. Others learn by doing such as working through a challenging set of hands-on lab exercises. That’s why we have created three different ways for you to learn the skills you need to build multi-language reports.

We also published a live demo of a multi-language report which supports 12 secondary languages so you can see for yourself what is possible. There will also be a live Power BI Dev Camp session on this topic running this week on Thursday, January 26th as 2:00 PM EST. You can find more info about this week’s Power BI Dev Camp session here.