[ARCHIVED] How do I get a preview to show for an Office 365 document?

[arary]

I want to post my syllabus on Canvas. I used "external tool" and selected the appropriate Office 365 document. However, I don't see an option for inline preview.

I thought about downloading the Office 365 document to my computer, then uploading it to my Canvas page, but I may end up making changes to the document so I'd rather use Office 365. However, I can't find a way to show the preview on the Canvas page. Help!

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hello there, @arary ...

Unfortunately, I don't think this is possible.  Since it sounds like you have O365 integrated with your school's Canvas environment, it would not show an in-line preview.  If you take a look at the HTML side of the page with your link, you'll most likely see something like:

https://SchoolName.instructure.com/courses/12345/external_tools/retrieve.. .

This tells me that the file name is pointing to the external tool (in this case, O365) to display that link for you and your students.

In contrast, a file that you linked on a page from your "Files" area of the course might have a link that looks similar to:

https://SchoolName.instructure.com/courses/12345/files/567890/... .

While I do understand the reasoning for what you would like to do, I don't think an in-line preview would be possible using the O365 integration.

However, if you were able to harvest the embed code from your O365 document, then you might be able to display it that way instead?  Just a thought.

Hope this helps a bit.  Sing out if you have any other questions...thanks!