Scorecards
A scorecard shows one metric as a single number — the building block of the KPI strip across the top of most reports.
The part that makes it useful is the comparison. In Setup, set a comparison date range (previous period, previous year) and the scorecard displays the change as an arrow and percentage. A number without context tells the reader nothing; a number with a delta tells them whether to care.
Compact numbers
In Style, turn on Compact numbers so 1,254,300 displays as 1.3M. Set decimal precision there too.
On a KPI strip, consistent precision matters more than it sounds — one card showing 1.25M beside another showing 940,201 looks careless.
Tables
A table takes dimensions (rows) and metrics (columns). Useful settings in Setup:
- Rows per page — keep it low and let people page rather than scrolling forever
- Sort — by a metric descending is almost always more useful than alphabetical
- Summary row — totals at the bottom
In Style, Wrap text stops long labels being truncated to uselessness.
Heatmaps and bars in cells
Style → set a metric's display to Heatmap or Bar.
This is the highest-value formatting choice in Looker Studio. A table of numbers requires reading; the same table with bars in one column can be scanned in a second, and it costs one setting.
Pivot tables
A pivot table puts one dimension across the columns — month across the top, region down the side. It is the right choice when you are comparing the same metric across two dimensions.
Be careful with column count: a pivot on a high-cardinality dimension produces a table too wide to read.