Power BI Report vs Paginated Report: What’s the Difference?
📊 Power BI Report (PBIX)
✅ Best for:
- Interactive dashboards
- Data exploration & visual storytelling
- End-user drill-downs, slicers, and filters
- Regular business users and analysts
🔹 Key Features:
- Built in Power BI Desktop (.pbix file)
- Highly visual: cards, charts, maps, gauges, etc.
- Supports Import, DirectQuery, and Live Connections
- Built for web and mobile interactivity
- Easy to publish to Power BI Service and share
- Great for self-service BI and performance dashboards
🔴 Limitations:
- Limited control over print layout/export formatting
- Can't generate pixel-perfect invoices or multi-page reports easily
🧾 Paginated Report (.RDL)
✅ Best for:
- Pixel-perfect reporting (like invoices, forms, statements)
- Printable or export-heavy reports (PDF, Excel, CSV)
- Operational reports with long tables, repeating rows, headers, footers
- Scenarios where layout and formatting must be exact
🔹 Key Features:
- Built using Power BI Report Builder (.rdl file)
- Designed for multi-page, printable output
- Supports parameters and dynamic queries
- Ideal for SSRS-style reporting
- Can query large datasets with minimal interactivity
- Great for financial reports, paginated tables, formal reports
🔴 Limitations:
- Not meant for rich, interactive visualizations
- Requires Premium Per User (PPU) or Premium capacity to publish/view in Power BI Service
- Not ideal for dashboards or quick visual insights
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