Assets
Thumbnails and previews
How boveDAM generates thumbnails and in-portal previews.
What gets a thumbnail
boveDAM generates thumbnails automatically during the processing stage — the brief window after a file uploads and before it appears to clients. Three categories get custom thumbnails.
Images — Any image format boveDAM supports (JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP, SVG, TIFF, HEIC) gets a thumbnail sized to fit the card grid. SVG files render natively, so logos and illustrations stay sharp at any size.
PDFs — The first page of the document is rendered as the thumbnail. A 40-page brand guide, for example, will show its cover as the card image in the portal grid.
Videos — A frame at exactly 10% of the total video duration is captured as the thumbnail. This avoids blank frames that often appear at the very start of a recording. A two-minute product video would use the frame at the 12-second mark.
All other file types — audio, fonts, archives, and any unsupported format — display a generic file icon. No custom thumbnail is generated for these.
Grid view and list view
The portal offers two view modes, and thumbnails behave differently in each.
Grid view shows each asset as a card with the thumbnail prominently displayed. This is the default view and works best for visual assets like photography, illustrations, and logo packages. Thumbnails fill the card and a hover state reveals the file name and download button.
List view shows a compact row per asset, with a smaller thumbnail on the left. This works better for document-heavy sections — a list of PDFs or XLSX files is easier to scan in list view than in a grid of nearly identical icons.
Clients and editors can switch between views at any time using the view toggle in the top right of any section.
Full-size inline preview
Clicking a thumbnail opens the full-size preview inline — no new tab, no download required.
For images, the full-resolution file renders in a lightbox. The client can zoom in, pan, and close to return to the portal.
For PDFs, an embedded viewer opens with page navigation controls. A client reviewing a brand guidelines PDF can flip through every page without leaving the portal.
For videos, the player opens inline. Video plays from the beginning — not from the thumbnail frame. The file is streamed from a signed URL. Note that video is preview-only; boveDAM does not re-encode video files. Playback quality depends on the source file.
Audio files, fonts, and archives do not have an inline preview. Clicking their icon opens the download prompt if downloads are enabled for that portal.