Asset Document Thumbnails (PDF, DOCX, ODF, ...)

This feature creates image thumbnails from nearly any document format, including DOC(X), PPT(X), PDF, XLS(X), ODT, ODS, ODP, and many others.

You can use existing image thumbnail configurations to create a thumbnail of your choice.

This feature requires Ghostscript and at least Gotenberg or LibreOffice to be installed on the server.

Important Thumbnail processing for documents runs asynchronously as part of the Symfony Messenger queue, under the pimcore_asset_update messenger queue.

Examples

$asset = Asset::getById(123);
if($asset instanceof Asset\Document) {

   // get a thumbnail of the first page, resized to the configuration of "myThumbnail"
   echo $asset->getImageThumbnail("myThumbnail");


   // get the thumbnail for the second page (1-based) using a dynamic configuration
   echo $asset->getImageThumbnail(["width" => 230, "contain" => true], 2);


   // get the thumbnail URL for all pages, but do not generate them immediately (see third parameter)
   // the thumbnails are then generated on request
   $thumbnailUrls = [];
   for($i=1; $i<=$asset->getPageCount(); $i++) {
      $thumbnailUrls[] = $asset->getImageThumbnail("myThumbnail", $i, true);
   }

}

Building Thumbnails for a List of Assets

It is recommended to use named thumbnails for caching purposes.

$list = new Asset\Listing();
$assets = $list->getAssets();
foreach ($assets as $asset) {
   echo match (true) {
      $asset instanceof Asset\Image => $asset->getThumbnail('myThumbnail')?->getPath(),
      $asset instanceof Asset\Document => $asset->getImageThumbnail('myThumbnail')?->getPath(),
      default => '',
   };
}

Configuration

Asset documents depend on background processes to generate thumbnails and extract search text. These processes require page count processing, which can consume unnecessary resources if the feature is not used.

You can disable or fine-tune these background processes:

pimcore:
    assets:
        document:
            thumbnails:
                enabled: true # process thumbnails for asset documents (default: true)
            process_page_count: true # process & store page count, required for thumbnails & text generation (default: true)
            process_text: true # process text for asset documents, used by search (default: true)
            scan_pdf: true # scan PDF documents for unsafe JavaScript (default: true)
            open_pdf_in_new_tab: only-unsafe # 'all-pdfs' | 'only-unsafe' | 'none' (default: only-unsafe)

Option	Default	Description
thumbnails.enabled	true	Process thumbnails for asset documents.
process_page_count	true	Process and store page count. Internally required for thumbnails and text generation.
process_text	true	Extract text from asset documents (used by search).
scan_pdf	true	Scan PDF documents for unsafe JavaScript.
open_pdf_in_new_tab	only-unsafe	Controls PDF display: all-pdfs (show thumbnail for all PDFs), only-unsafe (show thumbnail only for PDFs with JavaScript), none (show all PDFs inline, not recommended).