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Copy/paste the data behind the visual in Power BI to other applications

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Mey Meenakshisundaram on 11 Nov 2014 09:19:41

I can copy the visual either as image or data table and paste it in other applications.

Administrator on 18 Mar 2022 04:20:35

March 2022 Update: We are looking into this

We recently released the ability to export data from tiles and visuals to a CSV file. This may work for y'all as a workaround until we add the ability to directly copy and paste the visual or data. You can read more about it here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/powerbi/archive/2016/01/06/power-bi-service-update-0106.aspx#exportTile. Be sure to let us know what you think about the feature!

Comments (134)
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Ignas Mockus on 05 Jul 2020 22:41:12

RE: Copy/paste the data behind the visual in Power BI to other applications

I use Q&A all the time for simple data search (e.g. phone number or ID of a certain user) and not being able to quickly copy the results is really frustrating. I don't want to be exporting the whole visual to CSV, when I only need to copy a value from one cell.

This is a big drawback that can act as a deal-breaker for many users/companies.

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Mark Bell on 05 Jul 2020 22:40:54

RE: Copy/paste the data behind the visual in Power BI to other applications

Users should be able to select and copy the text in all of the Visualizations. Exporting the data to CSV is too much friction and will reduce adoption for many scenarios.

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Marcos M on 05 Jul 2020 22:39:19

RE: Copy/paste the data behind the visual in Power BI to other applications

I agree with Scott Williams. There is no ellipses menu on a table visualization when it's viewed within a dashboard so cannot export data directly from a dashboard. The user needs to open the report but when s/he does so, all filters get lost.

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Magali on 05 Jul 2020 22:37:32

RE: Copy/paste the data behind the visual in Power BI to other applications

Ditto... I work in data analysis and review reports on a weekly basis with our teams to identify and fix data discrepancies between systems. I can't tell you how many times I wish I could have just copied (ctrl C) a subset of records from a table in visualization and instant messaged it to a team member. It would be the quickest way for me to 'allocate' the work that needs to be done.

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Power BI User on 05 Jul 2020 22:37:26

RE: Copy/paste the data behind the visual in Power BI to other applications

I agree with a ton of the comments, so I'll just repeat what others have said so you that you know that I actually think this is important.

It is very frustrating to have to export all the data behind a visual just to get one or two data points--this really hurts adoption because my users get frustrated and eventually revert back to older less amazing tools like excel bc they are frustrated and more familiar with them but I'd even be fine if "copy" just pulled all the data CURRENTLY displayed in the visual....for example if i have a that shows contains 1,000 rows in total (if i actually scrolled to the bottom) but only 10 rows can be seen in the visual without scrolling then I'd be okay if copy pulled those 10 rows and ignored the other 990.

the current solution of exporting all the visuals data then saving it as a CSV file then opening that CSV file so that I can simply "copy" a single value in order to use it in a word doc or ppt or internet browser is not worth the effort

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sarunas on 05 Jul 2020 22:37:18

RE: Copy/paste the data behind the visual in Power BI to other applications

The workaround is unfeasible if we try to reach a folder path link displayed in a table. It takes way too many clicks to do such a simple task: dots - export data - export -save - open... Then you find the link that you want, copy and paste into windows explorer...

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Daniel Bünzli on 05 Jul 2020 22:36:08

RE: Copy/paste the data behind the visual in Power BI to other applications

We use Order or Quote Numbers in our reports where some work has to be done for completion. Copying the number out of a list to use it in another system would be great and satisfy the enduser by saving time. For only one word/number the CSV-Export is an overkill.

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J on 05 Jul 2020 22:31:47

RE: Copy/paste the data behind the visual in Power BI to other applications

Does that still mean that we cannot copy and paste the charts and graphs from Power BI Desktop to a PowerPoint or Word?

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Power BI User on 05 Jul 2020 22:30:45

RE: Copy/paste the data behind the visual in Power BI to other applications

Exporting the data to CSV in order to just get the data for a single cell (or subset) is not a good work around.

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xxcorpxx on 05 Jul 2020 22:30:26

RE: Copy/paste the data behind the visual in Power BI to other applications

What he said...

Anonymous commented · July 07, 2016 12:47 · Flag as inappropriate
The export-function is very unhandy for this, since it exports all underlying data. If you implement the copy-function, please adjust it so that it only copies the displayed values. Furthermore, in case of a table for example, the structure of the table should be copied as well - not simply all the underlying data.