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Viewing and Opening a Document

Every document in Essal Office has a detail view — a dedicated page showing the document's content, metadata, and available actions. Opening a document is the starting point for reviewing, editing, or sharing it.

Opening a Document

From the document list, click anywhere on a document card to open it. The document detail view opens, showing:

  • A preview of the document on the left (or right, depending on your layout setting)
  • The metadata panel on the other side, including title, date, correspondent, document type, tags, and custom fields
  • The extracted text content (accessible via the Content tab)

The Preview Panel

The preview renders the document directly in your browser. For PDF files, you can scroll through multiple pages within the preview. For images, the full image is displayed.

Note: The preview shows the document as Essal Office stored it. For most uploaded PDFs, this is a searchable PDF/A file. For images, the original file is displayed.

The Metadata Panel

The right (or left) panel shows all metadata associated with the document:

  • Field: **Title**
  • Description: The document's name in Essal Office


  • Field: **Created date**
  • Description: The date recorded for this document (usually the document's own date, not the upload date)


  • Field: **Added date**
  • Description: The date the document was uploaded to Essal Office


  • Field: **Correspondent**
  • Description: Who the document is from or for


  • Field: **Document type**
  • Description: The nature of the document


  • Field: **Tags**
  • Description: All tags assigned to this document


  • Field: **Custom fields**
  • Description: Any additional fields your organisation has defined


  • Field: **Archive serial number**
  • Description: A unique permanent reference number, if assigned


  • Field: **Owner**
  • Description: The user who owns this document

The Content Tab

Switch to the Content tab to see the raw text extracted by OCR. This is the text Essal Office uses for full-text search. If a document is not appearing in search results as expected, checking the Content tab reveals exactly what text was extracted from it.

The History Tab

The History tab shows a log of every change made to the document's metadata, including who made the change and when. This is useful for auditing and for recovering accidentally changed values.

Switching Between Documents

While viewing a document, use the arrow navigation (if available) to step to the previous or next document in your current filtered list. This lets you review multiple documents quickly without returning to the list view each time.