SharePoint List Formatting
Back to column formats
Column formattingSharePoint Online

Open File as PDF

This sample can be applied to a column in a Document Library to render a link that will open an Office Document as a pdf.

Get this format View on GitHub

Shared by André Lage
Updated Jul 7, 2022

Open File as PDF formatting preview
Sample preview · View original image

Copy. Apply. Make it yours.

Get this format

1 definition

Review the requirements below, then paste this JSON into the matching formatting panel. Show me where.

Use your list's internal column names and replace any tenant-specific URLs or flow IDs. Formatting is presentation, not a way to secure data.

Column formatting
Download JSON
{
  "$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/sp/v2/column-formatting.schema.json",
  "elmType": "a",
  "attributes": {
    "href": "=@currentWeb + '/_api/v2.0/drives/YOUR_DRIVE_ID/root:/' + [$FileLeafRef] + ':/content?format=pdf'"
  },
  "txtContent": "[$FileLeafRef]",
  "style": {
    "display": "=if([$File_x0020_Type] == 'docx' || [$File_x0020_Type] == 'xlsx' || [$File_x0020_Type] == 'pptx' ,'inline', 'none')"
  }
}
View sourceLink to this definitiongeneric-open-file-as-pdf.json

From the contributor

How to use this sample

Summary

This sample can be applied to a column in a Document Library to render a link that will open an Office Document as a pdf. It relies on the SharePoint 2.0 rest api. The YOUR_DRIVE_ID placeholder in the json needs to be replaced with the correct driveurl for the document library where the format is being used.

screenshot of the sample

To Get the driveurl navigate to

https://--tenant--.sharepoint.com/sites/--sitename--/_api/v2.0/drives

replacing the --tenant-- and --sitename-- placeholders with approriate values.

Find the entry where the "name" attribute is the Title of the library where you want to use this JSON. Select the coresponding id attribute and paste it into the JSON template, replacing YOUR_DRIVE_ID

The id will look similar to b!oqbo5Yz5ekialDrzcav5R3esotWm9VxCmi6bA63L7Wfuozp-JfhPTaVlFzxUdRwa

View requirements

This format can be applied to any column type within a document library.

Sample

Solution Author(s)
generic-open-file-as-pdf.json Russell Gove

Version history

Version Date Comments
1.0 October 28, 2020 Initial release
1.1 July 7, 2022 Added @currentWeb usage

Disclaimer

THIS CODE IS PROVIDED AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, MERCHANTABILITY, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.

Additional notes