Forum Discussion

Mhd's avatar
Mhd
Explorer | Level 4
9 years ago

Is there a difference between PDF preview (endpoint : files/get_preview) and PDF files by /download

Hello, I am trying to display a doc file through /get_preview end point.  My understanding is that it will generated a pdf preview (I guess that means a pdf file ? ) The pdf preview I am getti...
API
Greg-DB's avatar
Greg-DB
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
9 years ago

The /2/files/download endpoint just returns the original file data. If the file is a PDF file, it will return the original PDF data.

 

The /2/files/get_preview endpoint generates a preview of the requested file, and does not return the original data. Per the documentation, it will generate either a preview in PDF or HTML format, depending on the type of the original file. Note that this endpoint does not support retrieving previews of PDF files.

 

If the file is already a PDF, you can just use the /2/files/download endpoint. If you do call the /2/files/get_preview endpoint for a .pdf file, it will fail with a 'unsupported_extension' error, which is likely the "empty" response you're referring to.

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