The file preview feature uses PDF based technology to display over 200 file types directly from your browser. This allows you to quickly view uploaded files, such as Word files, Excel spreadsheets, and PDF documents, without the hassle of downloading and opening them.
Document preview tools
There are several useful tools in the file preview toolbar. These tools offer the ability to:
- Toggle sidebar
- Find in document
- Previous/Next Page
- Automatic Zoom
- More (Rotate, Enable hand tool, Document properties)
Video preview
We have a wide range of supported video file types and codecs so most videos will be viewable from the file preview page. Please note that longer videos take longer to transcode.
- Supported video file formats: 3GP/3GP2, ASF (Windows Media), AVI, DNxHD (SMPTE VC-3), DV video, Flash Video, Matroska, MOV (Quicktime), MP4 Audio-only, MP4 Video/Audio, MPEG-2 TS ,MPEG-2 PS, MPEG-1, MPEG audio layer 3, Ogg, PCM, RealMedia, WAV, WebM.
- Supported video codecs: H.264, Theora, VP8, VP7, VP6, VP5, VP4, VP3, MPEG-4 ASP, DivX, XviD, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, H.263, H.263+, Flash Video, Windows Media Video 7, 8, and 9 (WMV1, WMV2, WMV3), Apple ProRes 422, Real Video, YUV, Schroedinger, Dirac, Sorenson, Cinepack, RPZA, Indeo, MJPEG.
- Supported audio codecs: MP3, AAC, WMA, WAV, AC3/DTS, RealAudio, Ogg Vorbis, Speex, FLAC, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, alaw/ulaw, gsm, pcm, adpcm.
File preview tips
Note: Documents (e.g. PDFs, DOC, etc) larger than 50MB will not generate file previews.
- File preview generation time depends on the size of the file
- Multiple files uploaded at one time are placed in a queue for file preview generation
- You can trigger a file preview (place it at the top of the queue) by clicking inside the details page of the file
- Thumbnails are also generated in the Files & Discussion page for any uploaded files that can be previewed
Some known issues which may cause an error in the file preview generation are:
- Password protected documents
- Excel files that have linked cells from other spreadsheets
- Word/Excel files with numerous Macros
- Word/Excel files with formatted text boxes
- PDFs with complex forms
- PDFs with Digital Rights Management