Renditions and previews
When you upload a file, CM Box automatically creates renditions — alternate versions of the file in useful sizes and formats. Renditions are what power the thumbnails in the Asset Browser, the preview you see when you open an item, and the download options in the details panel. The original file you uploaded is always kept, unchanged, as the native rendition.
How it works
Section titled “How it works”Conversion runs in the background right after an upload (and again when you replace the file), so renditions may take a moment to appear on large files. What gets generated depends on the file type:
| You upload | Renditions generated |
|---|---|
| Images (JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, TIFF, Photoshop PSD) | Thumbnail, Small, Medium, and Large sizes, each available as PNG, JPEG, and WebP |
| Documents (Word, PDF, CSV, RTF, JSON) | A PDF Preview plus a Thumbnail of the first page; the document’s text is also extracted so it is searchable |
| Video (MP4, AVI) | A web-ready Video Transcode, a Poster frame, Thumbnail and Large Thumbnail images, and a Storyboard with VTT track that shows preview frames as you drag the player’s scrubber |
Sizes are never upscaled — a small image only gets the renditions that fit within its original dimensions. Your administrator can turn individual conversions off for a repository; renditions that are disabled can instead be uploaded by hand (see below).
Preview viewers
Section titled “Preview viewers”When you open an item, the detail view picks a viewer based on the file type:
- Images display in an image viewer with options to expand the image and open the image editor. Images that carry Content Credentials (C2PA) show a provenance badge.
- Video and audio play in a media player. Video scrubbing shows storyboard preview frames when the VTT rendition exists.
- PDFs and documents open in the browser’s built-in PDF viewer, using the PDF Preview rendition for non-PDF documents.
- 3D models and CAD files open in interactive viewers you can orbit and zoom: glTF/GLB/USDZ models, common 3D and CAD formats (STEP, STL, OBJ, IFC, FBX, and others), DXF drawings, BIM models (XKT), SolidWorks exports, and Creo (PVZ) files each get an appropriate viewer.
If no preview is possible for a rendition, the viewer area shows No preview available for this rendition. with a Download Rendition button instead.
Where renditions appear
Section titled “Where renditions appear”Open an item and click View Details, then choose the Renditions tab (the panel header reads Rendition info). From there you can:
- See every rendition with its dimensions or file size, and download any of them — each row offers one download link per available format (for example PNG, JPEG, WEBP).
- Download the original file via the Native File link on the item’s metadata view.
- Click Regenerate Renditions to re-run all conversions for the item (requires edit permission) — useful if a conversion failed or your administrator changed the conversion settings.
- Upload a rendition yourself under the Upload heading: pick one of the listed rendition slots (for conversions that are disabled) or choose Custom to add your own named rendition. Custom renditions appear under their own Custom tab and can be deleted with the trash icon.