FEATURE REQUEST: We should be able to copy and paste visuals onto other applications

[pmdci]

I was wondering if I can ask the community to provide their thoughts on this functionality.

Basically we can copy an paste visuals within Power BI, but we cannot paste visuals copied onto the clipboard to anywhere outside Power BI.

My users were hoping that they could copy and paste visuals freely onto other applications, just like when copying a chart from Excel and pasting it somewhere else, like this:

In this screenshot, I copied a chart from Excel and pasted it on both Word and on Paint.

To the very least, we should be able to copy chart images into the clipboard. As a bonus I would like the option to export them as JPEG, PNG and EMF files.

I wonder whast the rest of the community thinks?

Uservoice entry for copying to clipboard: https://ideas.powerbi.com/forums/265200-power-bi-ideas/suggestions/11698812-copy-screenshot-of-visua...

Uservoice entry for exporting visuals as raster and vectorial images: https://ideas.powerbi.com/forums/265200-power-bi-ideas/suggestions/12556473-export-visual-as-raster-...

[MattAllington]

My view is - yes of course you should.  But I don't think this is an easy request.  Power BI is early in the proudct life cycle and "everything" still needs to be done.  The other operations you are referring to are part of a mature ecosystem (Windows and Office) and Power BI (Service at least) is not currently tight in that ecosystem (just my view).

So why don't you just take a screen shot and paste it into your other location as a work around for now?

[pmdci]

Thanks for the reply.

The workaround works perfectly for me (particularly since I am a big user of Snaggit). But this request came from my other users.

And yes you are right about the mature ecosystem.

Come to think of it, there is certainly a significant amount of code to handle the pasting through different applications. If I copy a chart and past it on Paint, it is pasted as a bitmap. But if I paste it on Word, it is as an embedded chart. Im particular, when right clicking a the word document you have the "paste special" option with several features, which includes pasting as an image.

But I think it is important mention this one up and place it on the rader for the product team.

[Phil_Seamark]

There are similar requests in the Ideas section.  Go vote them up, or add your own version if you can't find an exact match.  Let us know here so we can vote for it too.  🙂

[pmdci]

The links to the uservoice entries are in my first message.