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Viewing attachments
Attachment field
Troubleshooting issues with uploading attachments
Can I edit images in Airtable?
Reorder files in an attachment field

Viewing attachments

The attachment field allows you to store any type of file within a record. Depending on the file type, Airtable will generate a small thumbnail preview of the document, and/or a full-screen document preview. This article covers the different file types that support previews. 

 

Thumbnail previews

thumbnail_preview.gif

Thumbnails appear as a small preview of the document file, which will adjust based on row height. Thumbnail previews are generated for the following file types:

  • Image and design files (.png, .jpg, .gif, .svg, .psd, and .tiff file formats)
  • Word documents (.doc and .docx)
  • Excel files (.xls, .xlsx, and .csv)
  • Text files (.txt)
  • PDF documents (.pdf)
  • Powerpoint presentations without embedded videos (.ppt and .pptx)

 

Full-screen document previews

full-screen_preview.gif

Full-screen attachment previews provide a way to view the supported file types (below), but not edit them directly in Airtable. We support viewing the following file types:

  • Image and design files (.png, .jpg, gif, .psd, and .tiff file formats)
  • Video files (HTML5 format, which is browser dependent)
  • Word documents (.doc and .docx)
  • Excel files (.xls, .xlsx, and .csv)
  • Text files (.txt)
  • PDF documents (.pdf)
  • Powerpoint presentations without embedded videos (.ppt and .pptx)
  • XML data (.xml)

 

Limitations for attachment previews

  • Excel preview does not follow time information in the original file. When previewing Excel documents, the time-related functions (for example, TODAY() or TIME()) do not display accurately. This is because Excel date/time functions are dynamic, while the previewed document is static. The document preview obtains and displays the date the file was previewed. A static version of the time/date is displays in the previewed document, based on the time the preview was generated.
  • You cannot preview password-protected files.
  • Hyperlinks do not work in PowerPoint files in previews on either the Web, m.box, or mobile applications.
  • Videos embedded in Powerpoint files do not work in Preview.
  • Animations and page transitions in PowerPoint do not work in preview.
  • Adobe PDF Portfolios are not supported by Box Preview.
  • Small-sized files (1-byte) cannot be previewed on m.box.com
  • GIFs will not preview if they are too large. Try to keep GIFs under 5MB to enable previewing.

 

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