Preview Docx, Doc, xls etc in Browser

RE: Preview Docx, Doc, xls etc in Browser

davel001150 — Fri, 16 Aug 2019 14:15:52 GMT

Assuming that you're trying to use the Document Viewer Component released in 18.3, it looks like it has to do entirely with your browser configurations. There's nothing in the Appian product that can change what Chrome does by default, you need other software built to change what Chrome does by default.

Ultimately, Appian serves content to your browser or mobile device, and that code then decides what to do with the content Appian provides before displaying it to you.

Docs Online Viewer comes as the best rated Chrome extension, though depending on your use case you may want to further vet out the security of that extension. Lots of 5 star reviews.

I personally don't ever use Edge for anything, so I can't make any recommendations there.

RE: Preview Docx, Doc, xls etc in Browser

Mike Schmitt — Fri, 16 Aug 2019 14:08:45 GMT

Check into the Dynamic Document Generator plug-in.

RE: Preview Docx, Doc, xls etc in Browser

neilc0002 — Fri, 16 Aug 2019 14:03:19 GMT

Hi Mike, thanks for that, are you able to point me in the direction of any of these converters?

RE: Preview Docx, Doc, xls etc in Browser

Mike Schmitt — Fri, 16 Aug 2019 14:01:14 GMT

I'm not sure the reasoning behind the current restrictions (i seem to remember hearing some mention about security, and i also suspect there's some licensing consideration for the proprietary file types).

Anyway, one way I've seen to resolve this for at least some cases, is to use the various PDF conversion utilities available to create temporary PDF-converted copies of whatever file you want to preview on-form, and then display that. I've successfully used this technique to display HTML files previews on a form, at least.

RE: Preview Docx, Doc, xls etc in Browser

Joe — Fri, 16 Aug 2019 14:00:56 GMT

We also have the same issue with our Appian implementation. User's can download the the docx to open and view within a word application but cannot preview the form prior to downloading. It seems that only Pdf files can be previewed prior to downloading.