Power BI Slicer is commonly used to add filters to the canvas or to display filters on the report canvas. Let me show you how to Create a Slicer in Power BI with an example.

For this Power BI Slicer demonstration, we are going to use the SQL Data Source that we created in our previous article. So, Please refer to Connect Power BI to SQL Server article to understand the Power BI Data Source.

How to Create a Power BI Slicer

We are going to use this page to demonstrate the steps involved in creating a Power BI Slicer. This page contains Stacked Bar Chart, Clustered Column Chart, and Pie Chart.  

To create a Slicer in Power BI, first Drag and Drop the fields that you want to use as a filter to the Canvas region.

In this example, we want to use Country as the Filter for this report. So, let me drag the Country from the Geography table to the Canvas. It will automatically create a Map for you.

Click on the Slicer under the Visualization section. It will convert a Map into Slicer. From the screenshot below, you can see the list of countries.

Create a Power Bi Slicer Approach 2

First, click on the Slicer under the Visualization section. It automatically creates a Slicer with dummy data, as shown below.

In order to add data to a Slicer, please drag and drop the filter field to the Fields section. Let me add Country to the Fields section.

For the demo purpose, let me select the United States. From the screenshot below, you can see that the Stacked Column chart, Pie Chart, and Clustered Column charts are displaying the Sales for the united states.

TIP: By default, you can only select One field (Country) at a time. For multiple select, you have to toggle Single Select option from On to Off in the format section.

This time we selected the United Kingdom. From the screenshot below, you can see that the filter applied on all charts.

How to Format Power BI Slicer

Please click on the Format button to see the list of formatting options that are available for this Power BI Slicer.

Format Power BI Slicer General Settings

Use this General Section to Change the Outline Weight, Outline Color, X, Y position, Width, and height of a slicer

Format Header of a Slicer in Power BI

As you can see from the screenshot below, we added Background Color, Outline to bottom. Next, we changed the text size to 20, and Font family to Georgia.

Format Power BI Slicer Items

We changed the Items (Countries) font color to Green, text size to 20, and Font family to Georgia.  

Format Slicer Title

By toggling the Title option from Off to On, you can add a title to the Slicer.

From the screenshot below, you can see we added the Title Text as Countries Slicer in Power BI. Next, change the Font Color to Red, Title Alignment to center, Font Family to Georgia, and Text Size to 19.

Format Power BI Slicer Background Color and Borders

You can add the Background color to a slicer by toggling Background option to On. For the demonstration purpose, we added a random color with 66% transparency.

Similarly, you can add Borders to a slicer by toggling the Border option from Off to On.

Format Slicer Selection Control

The selection controls section helps you to format the Power BI slicer selection control. This section has two properties:

• Show Select All: It adds Select All option to the Slicer.
• Single Select: It restricts the slicer selection to one item at a time.

Let me toggle the Show Select All option from Off to On. Now, you can see Select All under the Country Slicer

By toggling Single Select option from On to Off, you can enable the slicer to select multiple fields.

Let me select Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States.