Visuals that are added to your publication may be either "linked to" a parent discovery or local to the publication. Where the visual is linked, any changes to its formatting (apart from Panel Settings) and any changes to its other details are made in Discover and flow through to any presentations or publications it appears in. Where the visual is unlinked, it exists only in the publication and can be edited, including extensive formatting changes, without affecting the original discovery. You may want to unlink visuals in your publications if you want to prevent any future changes affecting the discovery.
Note: By default, discoveries that are created in Publish are one-off content items that exist only in the current publication (are unlinked). Linked discoveries are typically created in advance in Discover and dragged onto your publication from the Content panel.
When you unlink visuals, they can be edited without affecting the original visual in Discover, and vice-versa. This means you can:
- Overwrite the themes and formatting applied to the visual from Discover, without affecting the original instance.
- Edit the original content without affecting other presentations or publications that include the original visual.
Unlink Visuals
Unlink All
To unlink all visuals in the publication:
- From the Publish ribbon, click Unlink All.
Unlink
To unlink a single selected visual using the Unlink button:
- Select the relevant visual on the canvas.
- From the Component ribbon, click Unlink (green highlight). Note: This option is available for all types of visuals; that is, pie charts, line charts, and so on.
Your selected visual is now "unlinked" from its original and is part of this publication only. When the original visual is now edited in Discover, the unlinked visual in the publication is not affected by any changes.
Unlink Slicer
You can, optionally, unlink a slicer from its discovery in the Elements page of the Slicer Settings panel. This allows you to update the slicer without affecting its formerly linked discovery or any other instances of the slicer.
For more information, see Slicer Settings.
Editing Visuals in Publish
Make Shareable
If you want to save an unlinked discovery so that it can be edited in Discover and shared with other presentations and publications, right-click it and select Make Shareable from the context menu. Make sure you save your visual with an identifiable name for future use.
Formatting Content
You can open the Formatting panel in Publish and use it to:
- Update the Panel Settings for any linked visual.
- Update all formatting options, including Panel Settings, for any unlinked visual.
- Click here for details about the Formatting panel in Publish
- Click here for details of the Panel Settings in the Formatting panel