Unfortunately I have not found a way around this, local preview will not work with giving up security.
Sorry I don’t fully understand your reply.
If I go to my WP Media Library I can find the document I want to preview, open it and copy its URL i.e. https://domain/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/file.pdf I then hyperlink some text to open that URL and I can preview my docs.
I guess I’m confused now… I not sure why you don’t want to use the built in methodology to preview documents. Both your method and the standard method do exactly the same thing.
Are you running a document preview engine on your server?
I can’t use the built in method you supply (Google Docs) because my site is an intranet and holds private documents and if i use google docs, it makes my documents public through the google docs URL. (And gets blocked from my company anyway).
The method I suggested is a manual method, that I have done a couple of times on my site when I just want people to read a document instead of the need to download it to their computer first.
Okay I think I get it, so what you are asking is direct link to the file. Currently there is a .htaccess file in the mdocs directory that blocks that request. If you change it your files will be accessible by unauthorized users. So basically if someone gets the direct link https://domain/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/file.pdf anyone will be able to download it.
This is why mdocs uses the file id methodology where the download is controlled by mdocs.
In conclusion I can’t recommend this method but if you want to do it your can goto Options > Settings > .htaccess File Editor and delete all content in the text area. This will allow access to the mdocs folder and you will be able to use the direct link to files.
Hope this helps 🙂
