Upload documents and create links in modern pages

Brass Contributor

In SharePoint 2013, when creating a news page, wiki page, etc we have the Upload File feature, which uploads a file into a selectable document library, and then creates a link to it on the page with a small image of the file type.  This makes the process of adding files to news articles really easy, and for readers, they understand they are clicking on a document link.

 

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Moving onto SharePoint Online, the closest we seem to have to this on Modern Pages is the file viewer, which doesn't really scale when you have more than 1 document link to add.  The way this webpart uploads files isn't even consistent with the image webpart, that nicely creates a separate folder in Site Assets >SitePages, and uploads the image to there - whereas the file viewer uploads the document into the root of Shared Documents! I can't see a way to change this.  

 

Does anyone have any tips on how their end-users are managing this sort of inconsistency and lack of ease of use compared to the classic experience? Or am i missing some functionality somewhere?

8 Replies

Did not even know these options that said i thought it is possible to upload directly into a news item which automaticly stores the picture in the siteassets library.

 

Correct me if i am wrong on this one.

You are right - pictures do get uploaded and stored in the siteassets library in a folder with the same name as the news page. This keeps all assets for that news article nicely together.

The problem I have is that the file viewer puts the file in a different location - Share Documents root - and this is not consistent with the picture uploads. So my thoughts would be that the file viewer should upload files into the same siteassets location as the pictures get uploaded.

It would also be good if the file viewer had an option to show a link rather than the file - and then if you have 2 or more files, they show nicely on the page. Yes, we can add hyperlinks into text webparts, but the files need to have been uploaded first.

I can't find anything like this on uservoice, so probably need to add these?

@Pete Bostrom This is the only thread on this i can find, not sure if a solution was ever found. This is a baffling omission of functionality. Being able to upload a document 'on the fly' is an absolutely essential bit of functionality. Like you say, the only alternative is to use the "file viewer" webpart which takes up the entire page, or first upload the document then go back in an edit the page and use the "insert link" button. Both of these options are significantly worse than a simple "Upload file" feature, which is fundamental in every CMS i've ever used except this one.

@Pete Bostrom have you tried the quick links webpart? You can add multiples links and when you add one, you can select existing documents in the site or upload a new one that will get stored in the site assets at the same place where it stores images.

@Martin Coupal This is alright, but far from ideal particularly from a general user perspective who just wants to upload a file as they're adding text. They are hardly likely to know to do this. It also seems quite heavy handed to have to insert a widget to do this which, in addition, results in the widget having to be on an entirely different row to the text it's related to, rather than just a link saying something like "View/download this document"

@Rory2019 I understand this requires more efforts but this would be the way to go in modern for now if the requirement is to insert links (instead of using the file viewer webpart) and be able to upload a document that would be stored in the site assets library. 

Also, it is possible to use sections and columns layout to put the links next to the text.

@Martin Coupal It frustrates me that i have to figure out a load of workarounds, which the average user will not know how to do, to get what is essentially a very basic feature of any CMS. 

 

@Rory2019 I understand. The text web part needs to include these features. I always give a training to people who creates site pages and normally they are up and running after.