Building a Mobile-Friendly Report in Looker Studio

If your audience frequently views reports on smartphones or tablets, using a responsive report ensures your content looks great across all screen sizes.

Getting Started with a Responsive Layout in Looker Studio

To create a responsive report:

Log into Looker Studio.
Click Create → choose Report.
Connect a data source to begin.
The default layout is Freeform. Switch this to Responsive under the report type options:

Start adding content: include sections, visualizations, and interactive elements.

Organizing with Sections

Responsive reports use sections to group charts and filters. Each section allows for better structure and shared filtering options.

Adding a Section

While editing, hover above or below an existing section to reveal a + button and click it to add a new one.
For reports with no sections yet, inserting any chart will automatically generate a section to house it.

Inserting Charts or Controls

In empty sections, you’ll see buttons in the center for Add chart or Add control.

For sections that already contain items, hover over the right edge to access the same buttons. To rearrange items across sections, simply drag and drop them.

Adjusting Section Size

A section’s height depends on the tallest object inside it. To adjust:
- Increase the height by making the tallest element taller.
- Reduce it by shortening the tallest element.

The width spans the entire screen and cannot be changed.

Section-Level Filtering

You can apply filters directly to individual sections.

To set this up:

Click anywhere on the section background (not on specific items).
In the Setup tab within the Properties panel, go to Filter On This Group and click + Add a filter.

Controlling Filter Scope

To limit filters to that section only, uncheck Apply filter controls to page.
To allow filters to affect the entire report, keep this box checked (this is the default).

Managing Report Sections

Reordering

Use the six-dot handle on the left of any section to drag it to a new position.

Removing a Section

Right-click the section background or the six-dot icon.
Select Delete to remove the entire section.

Mobile Preview Options

To see how your report appears on smaller devices:

Click the dropdown next to View on the toolbar.

Choose a device preview (phone, tablet, or large screen).

Use the buttons in the lower right to toggle device types.

What You Can’t Do in Responsive Reports

While responsive reports offer flexibility across devices, they do come with some feature restrictions. Here are the main limitations to keep in mind:

Report-level positioning is disabled. You can only position components within the bounds of their section. There’s no way to set a fixed position across all pages.
The report and page canvas sizes are automatically determined based on your content, manual resizing isn’t possible.
Display modes are fixed. You can’t switch to “Fit to width” or “Actual size.” Responsive reports will always scale to the width of the viewer’s screen.
No control over grid settings. Responsive reports use a fixed 12-column grid layout that automatically adapts to the screen size. You can’t change this layout. Components automatically align to the responsive grid.
Report-level components are unavailable. It’s not possible to make a chart or control persist across all pages of a responsive report.
You can’t group multiple components manually. To organize them, use sections, which allow shared filtering and layout control.