There are several scenarios to use Unicode characters in Power BI including but not limited to:
Creating simple KPI columns in Table or Matrix visuals
To show the status of a measure more visually like using starts
Using Unicode characters as icons in your reports representing the subject
Chris Webb explained some of the above scenarios here.
In this post I explain how you can use Power BI as a tool to generate almost all valid Unicode characters in Power BI. You can download the PBIT at the bottom of this post. Then you can copy the Unicode characters from Power BI and use them in all textual parts of your report like visual titles, text boxes and so on.
The Unicode planes start from 0 to 1,114,111 which is decimal equivalent of 0 to 10FFFF in hexadecimal numeral system. For more information on Unicode planes check this out.
So, a simple way to generate all possible Unicode characters is to generate a list of decimal numbers starting from 0 ending at 1,114,111. This way we generate a series of decimal numbers regardless of the gaps between starting and ending Unicode blocks. Then using UNICHAR() function in DAX to generate corresponding Unicode characters. With the following DAX expression you can easily generate a list and the corresponding Unicode characters: Continue reading “Using Unicode Characters in Power BI”→
Keyboard shortcuts is an interesting topic for developes that can really improve your report development in Power BI Desktop. In this post I show you some keyboard shortcuts/hotkeys when writing DAX in Power BI Desktop.
Indend right: Ctrl + ]
Indent left: Ctrl + [
Mini-tip: You can also indent your code to ther right by pressing TAB or indent left by pressing Shift + TAB. But, the difference is that if your cursor is in the middle of a line, when you press TAB it divides your code to two pieces and indends the characters to the right from the position that cursor is in.
New line keep indent: Shift + Enter
New line starting from first of line: Alt + Enter
Activate Intellicence: Ctrl + Space
Comment multiple lines: Ctrl + KC or Ctrl + /
Uncomment multiple lines: Ctrl + KU or Ctrl + /
Move the current line up/down: Alt + Up/Down Arrow Key
Enter multiple lines of code at once: Ctrl + Alt + Up/Down Arrow Key
Find and replace a word: Ctrl + D to highlight the current word, Ctrl + D again to find/highligh the same next word. Continue pressing Ctrl + D to find/highlight all same words, then start typing to replace all words at once
Find and replace all of a kind at once: Ctrl + Shift + L to highlight a part of your DAX expression then start typing to replace the highlighted words at once
There are lots of cases you may want to comment/uncomment multiple lines in DAX scripts. You can save lots of development time if you know the shortcuts.
