Hi, I'm Tom Blessing. I'm an expert at helping small to mid-sized companies adopt Power BI. I'm also a recovering investment banker, with deep experience applying technology to otherwise manual data problems. I have dual degrees in Finance and Technology Management from Indiana University.

Resources to help build your fundamentals: Learning Power BI? Data fundamentals are critical for this process to be easier. I've assembled a few DataCamp courses to help. I earn a small commission if you click and purchase.

Introduction to Power BI course: Master Power BI basics and learn to build impactful reports.

Exploratory Data Analysis in Power BI course: Learn about Power BI's Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) and enhance your reports.

Introduction to SQL course: Learn how to create and query relational databases using SQL in just two hours.

Introduction to DAX course: Learn the fundamentals of Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) such as calculated columns, tables, and measures.

Database Design course: Learn to design databases in SQL to process, store, and organize data in a more efficient way.

The treemap is a valuable visualization type in Power BI that allows you to represent hierarchical data in a space-efficient manner.

However, when dealing with long category names or labels, the default settings of the treemap may truncate text, potentially reducing the clarity of your visualization.

To address this issue, I'm going to show you a work-around. Why? Treemaps in Power BI don't have a cateogry word-wrap feature. 

Annoying, right? 

But - in this blog post, we'll explore how to make the category labels readable on your treemap even if they don't wrap. 

Understanding Treemaps in Power BI

Treemaps are hierarchical visualizations that display data as nested rectangles, with each rectangle representing a category or subcategory. The size and color of each rectangle can be used to represent a measure or value associated with the category. Treemaps are commonly used to visualize hierarchical data structures, such as organizational hierarchies, product categories, or budget allocations.

The Challenge: Text Truncation

When you have long category names or labels in your treemap, the default settings may lead to text truncation. This truncation can make it difficult for viewers to understand the full category names, potentially hindering data interpretation and storytelling.

Most of the labels below are truncated!

How to Work Around Truncated Text in Power BI Treemaps

First, make the treemap as large as possible within your canvas. This expands the boxes and allows for more text in the biggest categories. 

Next, go to 'Format Your Visual', expand the Category section, and reduce the font size until at least 75% of your category names are fully visible. Chances are, the viewer won't care about the smaller categories because they're relatively immaterial. 

Ok! Most of our labels are now visible!

Conclusion

In Power BI, treemaps are an effective way to visualize hierarchical data structures.

However, when dealing with long category names or labels, text truncation can hinder data understanding and storytelling.

While this isn't a perfect solution, it gets you over the hump of enabling your reader to understand most of the datapoints within your visualization. 

(At least until Microsoft enables word wrap.)