How to programmatically set highlights on a previewed file when using the "driveItem: preview" REST endpoint?

Question

I'm using the driveItem: preview endpoint from the Microsoft Graph REST API https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/driveitem-preview?view=graph-rest-1.0 I'm embedding the getUrl field of the result in an iframe.

The file (a .docx file) is displayed correctly. But, in addition, I would like some of the text paragraphs in the file to appear highlighted. Is that possible?

At first sight, it doesn't seem to be possible. The preview endpoint request description doesn't seem to include any parameter that would allow for that. And the preview element itself seems to be a very "opaque" image that can't easily be targeted programmatically (for example using the CSS Custom Highlight API of modern browsers.)

Am I missing some possible solution that would allow me to highlight passages inside the previewed file?

Answer 1

Hi @Daniel Díaz

You are correct that the driveItem: preview endpoint of the Microsoft Graph REST API does not currently support highlighting specific text paragraphs in the preview. The preview functionality is mainly used to generate a short-term embeddable URL to display the file content in an iframe, but it does not provide fine-grained control over the content, such as text highlighting.

Hope this helps.

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