New: Attachment annotations

[Jason]

We just launched a feature called attachment annotations that lets you leave comments in a specific position on an Airtable attachment. You can give fast, clear, actionable feedback on any type of visual asset to help speed up your creative process.

We currently support annotations on images (JPEGs, PNGs, and GIFs) and videos (MP4 and WebM). For more information on how to use this new feature, please see this support article for specifics and our blog post for a broader look at the asset review process.

And, we’d love your feedback! Leave any comments or feedback here in this topic.

[Lindsay_Johnson]

Is there a way to view these comments on the mobile app?

[Jason]

Lindsay_Johnson:

Is there a way to view these comments on the mobile app?

Viewing attachment comments looks the same as record comments on mobile. However, writing attachment comments is currently not available on mobile.

[Tech_Support1]

Since the Commenting on Attachments feature was implemented, none of my PDF documents that are saved to attachment fields are working correctly. I do not get a preview display of the PDF document. Instead there is a blank screen and the PDF doc automatically downloads (without warning or notification). This results in multiple copies of the PDF file getting downloaded.

I am making extensive use of Formstack Docs app to create PDFs and store them in attachment fields and this has become very problematic.

I have seen several threads on the Community Forums indicating similar problems but then those threads are closed and supposedly resolved but that is certainly not the case in my apps.

Is there a way to revert back from having Attachment field commenting automatically turned on? I really need to be able to preview a PDF file in the attachment field and only want that file to download when I actually click the download button.

[Bill_French]

Tech_Support1:

I do not get a preview display of the PDF document. Instead there is a blank screen and the PDF doc automatically downloads

I could be wrong, but I have a hunch this is not related to the new feature. Rather, it suggests that the URLs you are using to add the PDF documents as attachments are instrumented in a manner that causes your browser to force the download process instead of rendering the document in a preview.

My previews are still working and I have many comments on them.

[Tech_Support1]

Hmm, the PDF document is getting created via the Formstack Docs app and nothing has changed with respect to how that was configured. It has worked flawlessly prior to the commenting feature being activated but not now. I’m not sure how to identify any URL associated with the file getting sent to Airtable. When I go to the attachment field, here’s an example of what I see:

Without doing anything else other than clicking on the attachment field, the PDF is getting downloaded and there is no indication to the user that a download is in progress. I’m at a loss for how to proceed…

[Bill_French]

Tech_Support1:

It has worked flawlessly prior to the commenting feature being activated but not now.

Indeed, the timing looks like the new feature may be causal. However, before we can rule anything out (or in) we need to isolate a few behaviours first.

If you take the document that was downloaded and manually re-attach it to the same record, does it render properly thereafter?

[Tech_Support1]

No. If I upload the PDF doc to the attachment field, I get the same issue, no preview of PDF itself and only the screen view shown in my previous post. Clicking into the attachment field automatically downloads the PDF too. Weird behavior.

The workflow associated with this base ends up creating 6 PDF docs, via Formstack Docs, all of which previously created and stored the PDF in the appropriate attachment field correctly. If I go back and look at some of the historical records, none of the PDFs get previewed properly in their corresponding attachment fields.

[Bill_French]

Very strange - so… either the PDF itself is triggering this, or there’s a new bug in Airtable likely related to the recent new commenting feature.

Have you manually tried attaching and previewing a random PDF document? That’s all I’m doing and it seems fine.

[Tech_Support1]

Yes, I’ve tried dropping another PDF from outside the Airtable app into attachment fields with the same result.

[Bill_French]

My UX has not changed, so now it’s time to examine the browser. Any changes on the browser side?