Recently, I was working on a Power BI report for a client. The report is based on the ‘Product Sales and Profits’.
As one of their requirements was to view the profit of different product categories each year, which should show the category with the highest profits, and also the category with the lowest profits.
To achieve this, I have added a ‘Ribbon Chart in Power BI’ to the Power BI report that meets the exact requirement.
In this Power BI tutorial, I will explain what a ribbon chart is in Power BI and how to create a ‘Ribbon Chart in Power BI’. Also, I will explain the following points:
- Create a ribbon chart in Power BI
- Change the width of a ribbon chart in Power BI
- Power BI ribbon chart X-axis properties
- Power BI Ribbon chart Y-axis properties
- Display X-axis & Y-axis sliders in the Power BI ribbon chart
Ribbon Chart Power BI
In Power BI, the ribbon chart visualization is used to represent the data, showing which category has the highest value or lowest value over a specified time period.
The ribbon chart combines multiple ribbons into a single view.The ribbon for the highest value will be displayed at the top, and the remaining ribbons will be shown below it within a specific time range.
For Example, from the below image, you can see that for the year 2023, the East region has the highest value [14k], where the South region has [12k], and the West region has [8k]. So, the South and West regions are displaying under the East region.
Create a Ribbon Chart in Power BI
Let me explain how to create a ribbon chart in Power BI here.
Suppose, here I took a ‘Products Sale’ data with the columns as shown in the screenshot below.
Now, I wanted to see which region has the highest product profit for each particular year. For that, you can create a Ribbon chart for this in a Power BI report.
Here are the steps to do this:
- Launch Power BI Desktop and connect to the data source. Here, I’m connecting to the Excel source. Click on the Excel workbook option from the ribbon.
- Under the Visualizations pane, select the Ribbon Chart option. Then, an empty chart will be added to the canvas.
- Under the Build visual pane, drag and drop the values from the data pane to the field values.
- X-axis – Year column
- Y-axis – Profit column
- Legend – Region column
- Then, a ribbon chart will be added to the Power BI report canvas, displaying the product profit by region each year. Refer to the image below:
Power BI Ribbon Chart Width
By default, Power BI will change the width of a ribbon based on a specific value for each category.
In Power BI, the ribbon width represents a specific value for a category within a given time period; a wider ribbon indicates a higher value.
When the ribbon width is large, it indicates that the category has the highest value at that time compared to other periods within a given time frame.
From the image displayed below, you can see that the width is more for the West region in 2025 as compared to 2024 and 2023.
Power BI Ribbon Chart X-Axis & Y-Axis
In this section, I will explain the properties of the x-axis in the Power BI ribbon chart.
The image below shows the X-axis properties of the ribbon chart in Power BI.
To open the X-axis properties panel, select the ribbon chart visual -> click on Format visual icon under Visualizations pane -> Click on the drop-down of X-axis.
Properties:
- Type: This option has two choices, namely ‘Continuous’ and ‘Categorical’.
- Continuous: It will specify the X-axis as a numerical or time-based axis—example: 2023, 2024, and 2025.
- Categorical: This option will specify the X-axis into separate categories -example[Product: Monitor, Laptop, Smart phone].
- Range: With the help of this option, you can display the minimum and maximum range that can be displayed on the X-axis. By default, Power BI sets the lowest and highest values from the retrieved data.
- Values: This option displays the values on the X-axis, allowing you to adjust the font size, font type, color, display units, and decimal places.
- Title: By toggling on this option, the Title of the X-axis will be displayed. It has a Title Text option where you can add a custom title for the X-axis. Also, increase the font size, change the font style, and color.
Similarly, the Y-axis of the Power BI ribbon chart also has the same properties as the X-axis, such as Range, Values, and Title. But the Y-axis doesn’t have the Type option that is present in the X-axis.
You can have a look at the screenshot below that shows the Power BI Ribbon chart Y-axis properties:
Display X-Axis & Y-Axis Slider Bars in Power BI Ribbon Chart
Below is the image that shows the ribbon chart in Power BI, displaying without any slider bars.
Follow the steps below to show the slider bars in the Ribbon chart:
- On the Power BI report view, select the ribbon chart.
- In the visualization pane, click on Format your visual icon [Paint brush icon].
- Then, toggle the Zoom slider icon on.
- Then, the sliders bars will appear on the X-axis and Y-axis of the Power BI ribbon chart, as shown below:
- When you click on the drop-down of the Zoom slider, the X-axis and Y-axis options are present. Turn off the X-axis and Y-axis buttons to make the slider bars disappear from the ribbon chart.
- Here, I have turned off the Y-axis option from the Zoom slider.
- Then, you can see the result below, where the Power BI ribbon chart will only display the slider on the X-axis.
This guide focuses on creating a ribbon chart in Power BI, including the properties of the X-axis and Y-axis.
A ribbon is the advanced version of a stacked column chart in Power BI. In comparison, the ribbon chart has more advantages than the stacked column chart. The ribbon will display changes over time for different categories, a feature not possible with a standard stacked column chart.
I hope this article has provided you with enough information to work with ribbon charts in Power BI.
Read More Power BI Visualizations:
Preeti Sahu is an expert in Power Apps and has over six years of experience working with SharePoint Online and the Power Platform. She is the co-author of Microsoft Power Platform: A Deep Dive book. As a Power Platform developer, she has worked on developing various tools using Power Apps and Power Automate. She also makes Microsoft 365 videos and shares them on YouTube.
