To start, let's see what are the first steps to be done to immediately create a report in Data Studio. To be able to use Data Studio, it is not necessary to fill in any registration form; you just need to have an active Google account. If you've already signed into your Google Account, just type the following URL in a browser: https://datastudio.google.com/.

This will take you directly to the Data Studio home page, as shown in the following screenshot:

Once you have viewed the main page of Data Studio we can identify some sections that will help us to create our reports (in the previous screenshot they are highlighted). To start getting comfortable with the Data Studio interface we can consult some built-in templates to start already available. You can choose an existing model and modify it or simply start with a new blank report.

Clicking on the All models drop-down menu displays all the built-in templates. In this way we can choose any model that matches our needs and modify it using the available editor, in order to adapt it to our needs. Predefined templates are useful to get started or for those who have little time to spend on formatting settings. In fact, in these models the functionalities are already ready for use, thus saving a lot of time.

To understand effectively how to use Data Studio we will start from an empty report, in order to explain all the steps necessary to create a report. There are two ways to start with a new report:

• Click on the empty plus (+) page on the horizontal header (blank)
• Click on the (+) icon in the lower right corner

Both options are clearly highlighted in the previous figure, and in both cases the window that shows in the following screen is displayed:

This displays the report editor with all the controls and elements needed to add charts and data, and to choose the style of your report. Initially, the new report has a default name (Untitled Report) at the top left of the screen, so just click on it and we will enter a new name for the report (First Report).

The first thing to do is to add a data source to the report. To do this we have two options again:

• An existing data source
• Create new data source

In the previous screenshot, the two areas in which the options can be activated are highlighted. It is possible to notice that data sources proposed by exercise are already available at the bottom of the data source selector. On this occasion, we will refer to these resources. For example, to select the first item that refers to [Sample] World Population Data 2005-2014, just click on it. This dataset contains the world population data from 2005 to 2014. In this case the window shown in the following screenshot will be displayed:

After clicking on the ADD TO REPORT button, the main window of Data Studio is enriched with new components:

• Menu Bar: This allows you to access many other menu functions by right-clicking on a component.
• Toolbar: This allows you to choose among various tools, pages, and control options. This toolbar is divided into five sections.
• Layout and Theme properties panel: We can control the way your report appears on the viewer's screen using the options in this panel. This is the default properties panel; it appears when no other component is selected.

In the following screenshot, you can see the new aspect of the Report Figure:

To add a chart to the page in our empty report, just click on one of the icons in the toolbar. For example, to add a bar chart of the world population from 2005 until 2014 will suffice:

1. Click on the second icon in the third area of the toolbar (Bar chart)
2. Position the viewfinder at the point on the page where you want the graph to be shown
3. Draw the graph under the title, to move it just click and drag it, or select it, and use the arrow keys on the keyboard

Once this is done, the bar chart of our data will appear in the main area and the Layout and Theme properties panel on the right will give way to the bar chart properties panel, as shown in the following screenshot:

The bar chart properties panel becomes essential to make changes to the chart just added to our report. We can in fact change the type of chart, change the data source, add another dimension, add a new metric, and change the sorting of the data.

Data Studio does not allow the entire dashboard or multiple reports in a .pdf or other format. Although it is possible to export a single table or chart in a CSV format. To export a chart or a table:

• Click on the View tab at the top right to view the reports in view mode
• Hover over the graph or report you want to export
• Right click and select Export CSV

To export a whole dashboard as a PDF, there is not any internal functionality added yet that will help you export reports as .pdf. But by using a chrome extension you can do this very easily (Google Data Studio PDF Export). An alternative way of exporting a report to PDF is to print to PDF via your browser. You would have to do that for each report page.