Ability to see a file without downloading it

The latest version of Asana changed the PDF viewer to an image view and took away features that were very important to our team including the ability to rotate and zoom the image (without zooming the entire browser). we should not have to download the file in order to view it properly. How can we get this back? Thank you.

Before you could view click an attachment to view it in a new window. We used this to view PDF’s and comments in Asana at the same time. Something changed and now when we view attachments it opens up the same browser window so you can’t view and read comments in Asana. You have to download the file, locate it and open it. A huge waste of time and productivity. Please fix or add options, settings to bring back the old viewing feature.

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Just a guess, but I believe they’ve changed this to integrate with their Proofing feature, where you can click anywhere on the image and then create a subtask (feedback) from there.

However, I believe there’s a workaround:

From PDFs you can right click where it says ‘Download’ and select to open on a separate tab or window from the context menu, and as for images, you can click anywhere in the image thumbnail and do the same :wink:

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Thanks, but right clicking and opening in a new tab or window doesn’t work to view it. It just opens a new tab or window and proceeds to download the file.

Ah, you’re correct.
I can see that the URL for the PDF is like:

Log in - Asana

I would then to copy the URL remove the &force_download part and open in a new tab, which is a bit too much isn’t it?

Log in - Asana

If Asana removed that attribute I guess it would make it easier and people could save from their browser if they wanted to. :confused:

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I agree, that does work but is a pain. The work around I had was to copy Asana URL to a new window and paste then click on it to view the attachment next to the other Asana window with all the comments.
Thanks for trying to help and find workarounds.

Hi Michael,

We struggled with this change as well as it significantly affected our ability to process design tasks containing PDF’s. The only solution we found, although not ideal, is to switch from List view to Files view to open PDF files. The files in this view will open in new tabs the way you are used to. Once open, you can switch Asana back to list view (or Board or Timeline if that’s what you use) to work on your tasks. Note that this method works in Chrome. We have not tried it in any other browser. Good luck.

It really slows me down to not be able to zoom and pan in attachments view in Asana. In so many cases I have to download and open outside of Asana to proceed.

If zoom and pan is hard to deliver as part of proofing, offer a separate menu option to open an attachment for viewing (w/o proofing) please.

Thanks,

Larry

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Hi everybody, today we can no longer print an attachment from a task with out downloading it first,
this is not a huge thing but over the course of the day it is time consuming, just wondering if this is just part of a new update or does anyone know of another way around it,
thanks

Welcome to the Forum @anon70754082 and thank you for sharing your feedback with us!

What you are saying is correct. This new behaviour responds to a recent update on the Proofing feature we have recently launched. You can learn more about Proofing in our Guide article.

I completely understand your point and on my side, I’m escalating this feedback together with other comments we have received about this new behaviour to our Team in charge. If I hear anything on my end, I’ll make sure to share it with you here.

Please note I’ve slightly edited the title of this thread to make it more discoverable for other users to upvote. I hope it’s OK.

Morning Natalia,
thank you for your response, appreciate it and will wait to hear further, thanks

Natalia,

We have a major issue with this change! We are wasting time and storage on our computers just to print something from a task. We are unable to even print out an attached Picture without downloading it!

As for the approval feature, it is completely irrelevant to what we are doing, simple attachments and pictures do not require an approval process nor should we have to upgrade our accounts and pay just for the ability to simply click print.

This needs update needs to be removed and only be available to activate to those who want to utilize it.

Is there any status change or an update to this issue being corrected?

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Hello,

Has there been any movement on this improvement? This is also an issue for the company that I work with.

Thanks!

Try holding down the ctrl key when you click on the file within a task and it will open in a new tab. This works well in Chrome, not sure about other browsers.

Thats a nice workaround to downloading. Thanks Ronald! I still do hope that Asana develops some kind of zoom function.

This should also help: Ability to zoom in on attached images - #47 by Rebecca_McGrath