What would be better?
Well, this is the requirements bar we set at Stream It:
Must provide full in-line PDF document preview with scrolling. Must support expanded larger view with one click. Dynamic preview sizing in tables. Drag-and-drop additions; no custom or document-dependent formula edits. The number-one requirement from users I've spoken with is the ability to scroll (or swipe) in the preview thumbnail because that's how users find specific passages. Lacking the ability to perform a full text search, this is obviously the next best thing.
Coda checks all of these boxes if you know how to extract the URL of a Coda-bound file and embed it in a Canvas field. This document exposes these details.
Extracting the Coda URL for PDF Files
This is achieved with a formula in the hidden field PDF URL. It’s a little tricky but highly useful.
ParseJson(_Merge(thisRow.[PDF File]) + "", "#/publicUrl")
Embedding in a Canvas
With the URL for each file, it’s now possible to embed the document into a canvas field.
Embed(thisRow.[PDF URL])
In this example, I’ve embedded the formula in each canvas item for demonstration purposes, but at Stream It, we tend to use canvas templates in cases like this. There’s a good discussion of templating canvasses and .