Preview in Overlay mode prevents links from working in word docs and PDFs

[AndrewDOchs]

Hi community, we've been noticing that when you upload a word doc or PDF to Canvas and have correctly coded links to websites in those docs or PDFs, if the doc or PDF is displayed in the Canvas "preview in overlay" mode, the links do not work. They'll show as links, you can hover over them and the link URL will appear, but clicking will not do anything.

You can right-click on the link and choose open in new tab and they work that way, but that's not very convenient or intuitive for many users. The links will also work if you use the "preview inline" option. But that's a much less convenient option for viewing most word docs. This really seems like a basic and important functionality that Instructure should fix ASAP.

[dbrace]

Hi @AndrewDOchs,

Thank you for bringing this up. Have you contacted Canvas Support directly (the Canvas Community is not Canvas Support) and reported it to them?

-Doug

[AndrewDOchs · Accepted solution]

Hi @dbrace! Yes, I did do a chat with Instructure support this morning. The support person I chatted with confirmed the issue, looked for documentation on it, could not find any, so said they would have to refer the issue to the "second level team for further investigation". Haven't heard anything back yet.

[dbrace]

Thank you for reporting it to Canvas Support, @AndrewDOchs, because this is the type of issue that we as members of the Canvas Community could not fix and would only be able to workarounds (such as downloading the file, right-click, not use the default overlay option).

If you are willing, it would be great if you could return and let us know what they say.

-Doug

[AndrewDOchs]

Yes, definitely not expecting the community to directly fix this problem. I was hoping other members of the community might agree that this is significant functionality issue and help bring some pressure to bear on Instructure to actually fix it.

[manthoney]

Hi @AndrewDOchs - did you hear back from Instructure about this issue? I'm still experiencing this problem for hyperlinks in PDFs that preview in overlay. Thank you!

[AndrewDOchs]

Hi @manthoney, I have not heard anything back since the last message from Instructure support, back on March 23rd. This is what they wrote at the time:

"This is Viktória from the L2 Support team and I will be assisting you further. I understand that you found that hyperlink do not open in files embedded with the Preview in overlay option. 

I can confirm that we already have a ticket open with engineering to get this addressed. I have attached a tracker to your case and am putting your case on hold to ensure that you will be notified of updates from our engineers on the matter. If you have questions in the interim, feel free to reply to this email."

So I'm guessing the problem is still being worked on (hopefully). I definitely am still eager for an actual fix, myself.

[manthoney]

Thanks, this is good to know! I'll remain hopeful, but I think I'm going to make some decisions assuming that I can't count on the fix being implemented. I don't feel super confident that this fix will be prioritized in the near term.

[AndrewDOchs]

I definitely share your lack of confidence that this is being prioritized in the near term. Three months since I reported it and who knows how long Instructure had known about it before that since they said they already had a ticket open. Even though it seems to me very much like an issue worth prioritizing. We'll see.

[audrey_p]

Hi @AndrewDOchs thanks for posting this info! What is the status of your Instructure support ticket? We ran into this issue last Friday and asked to also have a tracker to your case but they couldn't find it. Could we also have your ticket number? 

[AndrewDOchs]

Hi @audrey_p - no updates unfortunately, have still not heard anything since March. I'll definitely update this thread if that happens - hopefully! But thanks for checking in and adding your voice to the issue. The case number should be: #12017329 and there's also a reference code, just in case they somehow lost that case number entirely (🙄😞 ref:!00DA00Ibsk.!500TU0RofBj:ref

Thanks!

[audrey_p]

Thanks @AndrewDOchs, they attached us to the tracker! FWIW I was told, "Unfortunately, I am not able to provide an update about the status of the incident as well. Our engineering team is aware of the issue but I am not able to provide an ETA about when the fix will be applied." 

[canvas_help]

@AndrewDOchs Is your Canvas acting like this, too? In all three environments (beta, test, prod) docs are acting the same as before. But PDFs are acting different and now:

• Preview inline - left click does not open links
• Preview in overlay and inline - right click does not give option to open link unless select the link text first

Canvas support said this reply today: 
"from our engineering teams, I’m afraid they have decided not to change the current functionality. Because pop-ups are blocked within documents, this behavior also affects links, which is why they don’t open with a standard left-click. For now, the recommended workaround is to right-click the link and open it in a new tab."

I wanted to see if your PDFs are acting different too, before replying. (I'm testing in Chrome.)

[AndrewDOchs]

I've been in conversation with Instructure support, they notified me the issue was fixed and asked me to check. I've also seen issues with this working across the board, but for me the issue appears to be mainly between docs or PDFs uploaded to the Syllabus page vs Modules, rather than with PDFs universally. Anything linked from the Syllabus page, the links in the doc/PDF don't work, anything linked from Modules, the links in the doc/PDF do seem to work, even if it's the same file in both cases (this is all newly uploaded files, FYI, since they told me existing files might not always work but new files should). So long story short I have been able to get PDFs to work.

This is the explanation they gave me, somewhat similar to yours: "Our engineering team had some further conversations regarding this behavior and discussed what they believe is the intended behavior vs reasons we may not want to launch links from documents, primarily for security. "