SharePoint Search

Smart Previews Versus OOTB Previews

SharePoint 2013 includes OOTB previews based on an additional product called Office Web Apps (aka OWA). The OWA has a number of limitations such as:

  • No previews for content outside SharePoint
  • Limited file format support
  • No support for pre-generated previews
  • Lack of content assembly

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BA Insight’s Smart Previews:

  • Work on documents stored anywhere
  • Support a wide variety of file formats including Office, PDF, Zip, email, images
  • Take the user to the most relevant page
  • May be generated ahead of time or on demand
  • Provide a dramatically quicker response time and lower bandwidth usage for large complex documents with pre-processing.
  • Per-user workspace capability allows users to tag, remember, and share content from a search session
  • Allows users to select, arrange, and export from the workspace, which is persistent across devices and sessions so you can continue to work seamlessly from the office PC to your iPad at home
  • Gives users the ability to do content assembly and create composite documents. For example, users can create Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, Excel manifests, and ZIP files using search derived content while preserving images and native formatting. This works on selected content in any supported format, stored in any repository with a connector. Content Assembly has proven to be a huge timesaver, as users select and re-use content into a new report automatically, eliminating cut-and-paste work.Read more about Smart Previews.