Why Do Knowledge Article Attachments Only Download as PDF?

[Lauren Methena]

When we attach documents to knowledge articles, whatever file type we attach, users can only view and download the file as a PDF.

For example, if we upload an Excel spreadsheet into an article and click the "Display attachment" box in the article record, the file will appear as an Excel spreadsheet in the Attachments box for that article.

However, once a user clicks on the attachment in the Attachments box, the file opens as a PDF in their browser.

This didn't happen in Madrid. It started happening in New York.

We would like to be able to attach other file types in addition to PDF, particularly fillable worksheets.

Has anyone else come across this issue? Or, does anyone know if this has been addressed and fixed in Orlando or Paris?

Thank you! I appreciate your help!

[Sajilal]

Hi Lauren,

It is because of the Document behaviour Plugin in Servicenow, please check this and for Workaround.

https://hi.service-now.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=KB0813384

Please Mark as ✅ Correct if this solves your issue and also mark ???? Helpful if it helps resolve your problem.

Thanks,
Saji

[Sajilal]

Hi Lauren,

Please confirm if your issue is resolved.

Thanks,

Saji

[Gaurav Shirsat]

Hi 

Knowledge articles enables you for self-service view and interaction. As a Knowledge Manager, you might want to share some downloadable files along with your articles to provide detailed information or a case study. You can author knowledge articles and add them as notes attachments that can be used by users. These attachments are not displayed automatically on portals, thereby limiting the effectiveness of self-service.

To display knowledge articles with downloadable file attachments, you must Knowledge Management/Display Notes and set the value to true. When you set the site setting to true, knowledge articles are displayed along with their attachments, so portal users can search for these attachments.

You can continue to use the legacy behavior of prefixing the notes description with *WEB* to publish it on the portal.

and ya as sajjal has directed you,because of that Document Behavior Plugin this functionality works Out of the Box.

refer this also

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/orlando-platform-administration/page/use/using-forms/task/t_AddingAnAttachment.html

Please Mark Correct and Helpful

Thanks and Regards

Gaurav Shirsat

[Namrata Khabale]

Hey Lauren ,

You can try this out:

View documents within the platform using Document Viewer rather than having to download them to your own file system.

Document Viewer supports viewing various file types in the platform. The maximum document file size that Document Viewer will display is 50 MB. To use the Document Viewer, enable it at instance level and for the tables for which you want to use it.

You can view following file types:

• MS Word (.doc) and (.docx)
• MS PowerPoint (.ppt) and (pptx)
• MS Excel (.xls) and (.xlsx)
• PDF
• PNG
• JPEG

Other document types, for example, .zip or .exe files, are automatically downloaded without requiring Document Viewer.

Refer this, it might help you:

Enable Document Viewer

View attachments with Document Viewer

Mark Correct and Helpful, if it helps!

Best Regards,

Namrata.