How Do I: Create a multi-language Power BI report?

Some time ago I was asked to blog about the possibility to create multi-language Power BI reports. It’s been a while and I did not find much time to research and blog because I was delivering a lot of trainings and working on the content of our plataan.tv trainings.

So the question is, I have created a nice Power BI report but now I want to translate it into different languages, how do I do that?

When it comes to localizing Power BI items, such as semantic models and reports, there are three types of translations.

Metadata translation
Report label translation
Data translation

For metadata and report label translations there’s a tool called: Translations Builder

Translations Builder does most of its work by adding and updating the metadata translations associated with data model objects including tables, columns, and measures.

After you install Translations Builder, you can open it directly from Power BI Desktop in the External Tools ribbon.

When you open a .pbix project in Translations Builder for the first time, the translation grid displays a row for each unhidden table, measure, and column in the project’s underlying data model.

The translation grid doesn’t display rows for data model objects in the data model that are hidden from the report view. Hidden objects aren’t displayed on a report and don’t require translations.

To add one or more secondary languages, follow these steps.

Select Add Language to display the Add Language dialog box.
Select a language in the list or use Ctrl to select multiple languages.
Select Add Language.
The added language or languages now appear in the Secondary Languages list.
In Power BI Desktop, select Save.

Translations Builder can modify the data model loaded in memory, but it can’t save the in-memory changes back to the underlying .pbix file. Always return to Power BI Desktop and select the Save command after you add languages or create or update translations. Adding a new language adds a new column of editable cells to the translations grid.

You can add and update translations for secondary languages directly in the translation grid with an Excel-like editing experience.

Test translations in the Power BI service

You can’t verify your multiple-language work in Power BI Desktop. Instead, you must test your work in the Power BI service in a workspace associated with a Premium capacity. After you add translation support with Translations Builder, follow these steps:

In Power BI Desktop, save changes to the underlying .pbix file.
In the Home ribbon, select Publish.
In the Publish to Power BI dialog box, highlight a workspace and then choose Select.
When the publishing finishes, select the link to open the project in the Power BI service.
After the report loads with its default language, select the browser address bar and add the following language parameter to the report URL.
```
?language=nl-BE
```
When you add the language parameter to the end of the report URL, assign a value that is a valid culture name. After you add the language parameter and press Enter, you can verify that the parameter has been accepted by the browser as it reloads the report.
If you forget to add the question mark (?) or if you don’t format the language parameter correctly, the browser rejects the parameter and removes it from the URL.
After you correctly load a report using a language parameter value of nl-BE, you should see the user experience for the entire Power BI service UI change from English to Dutch.

The report also displays the Dutch translations for the names of columns and measures.