Previewing a Document

Look at a document without opening it in another application to find out whether it was the one you wanted.

Where to find it

On a record, the Documents pane → Preview. The current version opens in place, under the row.

A preview is a download

The most important thing about it. The browser has the file either way — showing it inline changes a header, not who is entitled to the file.

So a preview is offered only where a download is, and a classification that permits reading and forbids export forbids the preview too. It is not a weaker entitlement; it is a convenience.

What can be shown

PDFs, images, plain text, and audio and video. The list is the platform’s own, shared with the file-serving layer, and it deliberately excludes anything that can execute — HTML and its relatives are downloaded rather than rendered.

A Word document or a spreadsheet shows “this kind of file cannot be shown here” and offers the download instead, which is more honest than a blank frame.

It shows the current version

To look at an earlier one, open the history and download it. Previewing every version in place would make the pane a file browser.

Every preview is a recorded read

It passes the same gate as a download, so it appears in the access log the same way. Somebody who previewed a document read it.

The frame is sandboxed

A document is somebody’s upload, served from your own domain. The preview frame is given no scripting and no access to the page around it, which is the same reasoning that keeps executable types off the inline list in the first place.

Worked example

A caseworker with eleven attachments on a case is looking for the one signed copy. Three previews, five seconds each, rather than three downloads into a downloads folder that then needs tidying — and the access log shows three reads by a person doing their job.

Recommendations

• Preview before downloading when you are identifying rather than using a document.
• Do not treat it as a control. Anybody who can preview can save.
• Expect office formats to download; that is not a fault.