How to Configure WebReady Document Viewing

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Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 will reach end of support on April 11, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

 

Applies to: Exchange Server 2007 SP1, Exchange Server 2007 SP2, Exchange Server 2007 SP3

This topic explains how to use Registry Editor to configure how attached documents in Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access will be displayed when they are opened by using WebReady Document Viewing.

About WebReady Document Viewing

WebReady Document Viewing converts documents to HTML files and displays them in a Web browser. This enables Outlook Web Access users to view a document that is attached to a message even when the application that would ordinarily be used to open that document is not present on the computer that is being used.

If the Client Access server is running the original release (RTM) version of Exchange Server 2007, WebReady Document Viewing supports the following file types:

Microsoft Office Word (.doc, rtf)

Microsoft Office Excel (.xls)

Microsoft Office PowerPoint (.ppt)

Adobe Portable Document Format (.pdf)

Exchange 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1)

If the Client Access server is running Exchange 2007 SP1, WebReady Document Viewing supports the following file types:

  • Word (.doc, .dot, rtf, .docx)

  • Excel (.xls, .xlsx)

  • PowerPoint (.ppt, .pps, .pptx)

Adobe Portable Document Format (.pdf)

Additional formats may be added in updates.

Appearance of Documents

WebReady Document Viewing is intended to serve as a basic viewer and does not offer the full feature set that is provided by the application that the file was created with. WebReady Document Viewing presents all data from a file in a browser window that lets the user scroll or page through each area of the document. The WebReady Document Viewing view includes all text, graphics, tables, and hyperlinks in a basic form that is easy to read. However, the content can look somewhat different from the original. This is mostly noticeable in Excel files where pivot tables and charts are used.

Excel, PowerPoint, and Adobe PDF files are displayed with the ability to page and scroll through all the data in the file. These types of files can only be printed one page at a time. Users cannot print the whole document at the same time. Word documents are displayed in a long, scrollable view that is easy to read, and can be printed as a complete document.

Excel Workbooks

An Excel workbook that is viewed through WebReady Document Viewing offers page links that let users navigate through all rows and worksheets within the workbook. Workbooks are displayed with pivot tables and cell formatting.

Some components of a workbook might not be displayed as accurately as other components. For example, some chart types are not supported and might appear as blank chart pages when they are viewed. To be certain that you are seeing Excel workbooks as they are intended to appear, open them using Excel.

PowerPoint Presentations

WebReady Document Viewing displays PowerPoint slides exactly as they appear in the PowerPoint application.

Viewing is easy because users can use the page number entry box or the paging links to switch back and forth between slides. Scroll bars are displayed if the slide is too large to fit the current window. Each slide is converted to an image file and is displayed as an inline image.

Adobe PDF Files

Adobe PDF files are viewed in a window with scroll bars, paging links, and a page number entry box.

Note

Hyperlinks are not functional when users view .pdf files from the viewer.

Before You Begin

To perform the following procedures, the account you use must be a member of the local Administrators group on the Client Access server.

For more information about permissions, delegating roles, and the rights that are required to administer Exchange Server 2007, see Permission Considerations.

Procedure

To use Registry Editor to configure WebReady Document Viewing options

  1. Log on to the Client Access server.

  2. Start Registry Editor (regedit).

  3. Locate or create the registry subkey that you want to edit.

  4. Change the subkey value to the value that you want.

  5. Close Registry Editor.

Incorrectly editing the registry can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Problems resulting from editing the registry incorrectly may not be able to be resolved. Before editing the registry, back up any valuable data.

Note

The procedure must be repeated on each Client Access server that you want the settings applied to.

Registry Keys

Excel

By default, the WebReady view of Excel workbooks displays 200 rows per page view. The window is scrollable to view all 200 rows. If you want to change this to a different value, you can do so by using the following registry information:

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchange OWA\ WebReadyDocumentViewing
DWORD ExcelRowsPerPage
Default value if DWORD is not present: 200
Value is an integer larger than 0
Value is the number of rows to be displayed per page in a WebReady Document Viewing page.

Recycle By Conversion

By default, after 150 conversions, the cache is recycled and unused sessions that have been marked for deletion are cleaned out. The following registry information will enable you to change the interval for recycling the cache by modifying the registry:

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchange OWA\WebReadyDocumentViewing
DWORD RecycleByConversions
Default value if DWORD is not present: 150
Value is an integer larger than 0

Maximum Document Input Size

If a Client Access server is being heavily used and performance problems start to occur, administrators can use this registry key to change the size of file that the conversion engine will accept to process. If a user clicks Open as Web Page for a file that exceeds the size specified in this registry entry, Outlook Web Access will display the following error message:

The document cannot be converted by the WebReady Document Viewing service because it is larger than the maximum size limit set by the administrator for your organization.

To set this value, use the following registry information.

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchange OWA\ WebReadyDocumentViewing
DWORD MaxDocumentInputSize
Default value if DWORD is not present: 5000 (value is in kilobytes; 5000 = 5 MB)
Value is an integer between 0 and 1000000 (1 GB)
Value is the number of kilobytes the maximum size of the input file can be.

Maximum Document Output Size

This setting resembles the MaxDocumentInputSize value but is for output files. No file that is being output by the converter and being put in the XCCache folder can exceed the size of the value in this registry key. This limit does not apply to the Sourcedoc file because it is an input file and it can exceed this value (but not exceed the value in the MaxDocumentInputSize key). The file types that are output are typically .htm, .css, and .jpg. If a user clicks Open as Web Page for a file and any of the output files exceed this registry key value, Outlook Web Access will display the following error message:

The document cannot be opened as a Web page. If the problem continues, contact technical support for your organization.

To set this value, use the following registry information.

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchange OWA\ WebReadyDocumentViewing
DWORD MaxDocumentOutputSize
Default value if DWORD is not present: 5000 (value is in kilobytes; 5000 = 5 MB)
Value is an integer between 0 and 1000000 (1 GB)
Value is the number of kilobytes the maximum size of the output file (jpg, htm, css) can be.

WebReady Document Viewing With Inline Image

When users view documents that contain images or converted files that output image files, WebReady Document Viewing displays these images inline. You can disable the display of these images by using the registry key discussed below.

However, if you use this registry key, some PowerPoint slides may be blank because the whole slide is treated as an image.

If you disable the display of inline images, the resulting WebReady Document Viewing views will not display placeholders for the missing inline image files. The text will continue throughout the whole document and the images will be omitted.

To implement this registry key, use the following registry information.

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchange OWA\ WebReadyDocumentViewing
DWORD WebReadyDocumentViewingWithInlineImage
Default value if DWORD is not present: 1
Value is 1 (Show embedded images) or 0 (Do not show embedded images)

Temp Folder Location

The default folder location for converted files is %SYSTEMROOT%\Temp. This is generally the Windows\temp folder. If you want to change this location to another drive or folder to save space or use a different drive that might have better performance, use the following registry information.

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchange OWA\ WebReadyDocumentViewing
String TempFolderLocation
Example value: d:\
Default value if String is not present: %SYSTEMROOT%\temp (ie. C:\Windows\temp)

The folder name XCCache is used regardless of your setting. Therefore, if you set the String temporary folder location value to d:\, all cached files will be stored in d:\XCCache.

Cache Disk Quota

To change the total amount of disk space that the WebReady Document Viewing feature can consume, use the cache disk quota setting. This specifies the space that is consumed by the XCCache folder contents during the conversion process. The default value is 1000 megabytes (MB). The default value is based on the assumption that a Client Access server that supports 2000 users can serve up to 3,400 sessions in an hour and as many as 200 potential WebReady Document Viewing requests with an input file size of 5 MB (see the Document Input Size registry key). This gave the default value of 5 MB x 200 = 1000 MB.

If you want to change the value of the cache disk quota, use the following registry information:

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchange OWA\ WebReadyDocumentViewing
DWORD: CacheDiskQuota
Default value if DWORD is not present: 1000 (The value is in megabytes.)

You may have to change the default settings if you receive the following error message when you click Open as Web Page:

The WebReady Document Viewing service is not working correctly because an error occurred.

Conversion Time-Out

This setting can be useful if you want to change the time-out value (in seconds) to control how soon the conversion process stops and moves on to process the next request in the Transcoding Task Manager. The default time is 20 seconds. If the conversion process is unable to start to display the first page of a document in the WebReady Document Viewing window within the specified time-out period, Outlook Web Access displays the following error:

The document is taking too long to convert to be viewed as a Web page. The file may be too large.

The document can still be downloaded as usual if that option is available in your organization.

Depending on server performance, you might want to increase the value to allow more time to display the WebReady Document Viewing window. This can be useful if you are currently running on a server that is having performance issues.

To change this time-out value, use the following registry information.

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchange OWA\ WebReadyDocumentViewing
DWORD ConversionTimeout
Default value if DWORD is not present: 20 (seconds)

For More Information

For more information about how to manage attachments in Outlook Web Access, see the following topics: