Previewing a file
A preview is drawn from what the file service already holds. An image is shown from its stored bytes; a plain format is shown as it was written; a document or spreadsheet is shown through what extraction produced, not through a page-faithful renderer. Nothing a document points at is fetched, which is the same refusal that applies when it is validated.
What is shown inline#
| Format | What you see | Fidelity |
|---|---|---|
| PNG, JPEG, WebP | The image itself, from the stored bytes | Exact — this is the file |
| TXT, Markdown, JSON | The content as written | Exact |
| CSV, TSV | Rows and columns as parsed | Exact values; the delimiter is resolved, so what you see is the parse rather than the raw line |
| PDF, DOCX, PPTX | What extraction produced from it | Content, not layout — the words without the page design |
| XLSX | The sheet values as read | Values rather than formulas, and one sheet at a time |
The pattern is that a preview shows you what Connect itself has to work with. That is more useful than a picture of the document, because it answers the question people actually have when a file-based answer looks wrong: what did it read? If the preview is missing a table, the answer was never going to mention that table either.
What is not rendered#
There is no page-faithful document viewer here — the sources this page is written from do not document one and this page does not claim one. A DOCX preview is its content, not a reproduction of its margins, fonts and headers. For a document whose layout is the point, download it and open it in the application that made it.
- Remote content
- Nothing a document references over the network is fetched to build a preview. A document that points outward stays pointed outward, unresolved.
- Embedded objects
- An object embedded inside a document is not itself opened and previewed as a separate file.
- Anything from a refused file
- A file that failed validation was never parsed, so there is nothing to preview. The refusal is what you see instead.
- Executable behaviour
- Macros, scripts and formulas are content to be described, never something the preview runs.
Using the preview as a check#
Open the preview before asking a question about a file you have just added.
Result Ten seconds here tells you whether the content you care about was extracted at all.
If the section you need is absent, check whether it is an image in the original.
Result A table screenshotted into a document is a picture, and pictures have no rows to extract.
If a PDF preview shows nothing, the document has no text layer.
Result The model can still read the pages as images and answer, but not quote — see the PDF has no readable text.
For a spreadsheet, confirm you are previewing the sheet you mean.
Result Values come from one sheet at a time, and a question about the wrong sheet gets a confident answer about the wrong numbers.
Preview, version and access#
A preview is always of one version. Opening a file that has been changed shows the current version by default; the earlier ones remain available and preview the same way, which is the quickest way to see what a modification actually changed. File versions covers the chain itself.
Access is the same as access to the file. Previews are served under the same workspace scoping and row-level security as every other read, so a preview cannot show you a file you would not be allowed to open — and there is no shareable preview link that steps outside that boundary.
Questions#
Why does the preview of my Word document look plain?
Because it is showing the content rather than the page. That is deliberate: it shows you what Connect extracted, which is what any answer about the document will be based on. Download the file for the formatted version.
Can other people in my workspace see my previews?
They can see the files they are entitled to see, previews included. The preview does not widen access; it is a view of a file under the same rules as opening it.
Does previewing a file cost anything?
No model call is involved in showing you what has already been extracted. Asking a question about the file is what involves a model, and that is metered like any other turn.