Paginated Reports and Specialized Reporting

What Are Paginated Reports?

Paginated reports are designed for reports that require precise page layouts and consistent printing or export.

Unlike interactive Power BI reports, paginated reports are intended to display structured information across pages, with control over page size, margins, headers, footers, and repeated table headings.

They are useful when organizations need detailed documents rather than primarily interactive visual exploration.

Examples of Paginated Reports

Common use cases include:

• Customer invoices.
• Financial statements.
• Detailed transaction listings.
• Employee records.
• Regulatory documents.
• Printable operational reports.

For example, an invoice report might need to display a company logo, customer details, itemized charges, tax calculations, and payment instructions in a specific layout.

Creating Paginated Reports

Paginated reports are commonly authored using Power BI Report Builder.

A typical workflow includes:

1. Open Power BI Report Builder.
2. Create a new report.
3. Configure a data source.
4. Define a dataset using an appropriate query.
5. Add tables, matrices, text boxes, and other report elements.
6. Configure grouping, page layout, and formatting.
7. Preview the report.
8. Publish it to a supported Power BI Service workspace.

Publishing and consumption require the appropriate licensing or capacity configuration.

Paginated Reports vs. Interactive Reports

Choose the report type according to how users need to consume the information.