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Setting Table and Matrix Column Widths in Power BI

Kurt Buhler controls the horizontal, Kurt Buhler controls the vertical:

One challenge of the table and matrix visuals in Power BI is that it’s difficult to precisely and consistently set column widths. Unlike in Excel, where you can set the row and column widths in a spreadsheet, you have no option in the visual interface to control the column width property. However, it’s still possible to control it in the report metadata, which is exposed in the officially supported Power BI Projects format (.pbip) which is in preview. Notably, however, opening and modifying report metadata from this format isn’t yet supported. Despite that fact, it still works reliably, so I thought I’d demonstrate how to do this.

There are a fair number of steps involved but it all makes sense in the end.