PDF (Binary) Files in a table

[joglidden2]

I foolishly attempted to create a table in PBI Desktop, from a table in SQL Server, with one column a binary (pdf). I hopefully thought it would provide a link that you could download right out of the report, but that didn't work. In fact it doesn't appear something like this is possible at all. I found this in the documentation:

It seems to me the best option would be to provide a link to a SharePoint site or Azure storage or something, which would be a workaround. Anyone ever tried this?

[joglidden2]

@lbendlin , thanks for the suggestion. That's more of a goat-rope than I'm interested in, but thanks for the idea, and for confirming the limitation. Clearly, PBI is not the appropriate tool for this problem. 

[v-linyulu-msft]

Hi, @joglidden2 
Excuse me, was lbendlin's  answer helpful?

If it's helpful, you may consider marking his answer as a solution, so that community members in the community who have similar questions to you can find the answer more quickly.

Thank you in advance for your contribution to the community.

Best Regards,

Leroy Lu

[joglidden2]

There isn't a solution. It's just a shortcoming of PBI, or PBI is simply the wrong tool. 

[v-linyulu-msft]

HI,@joglidden2 

Thanks for letting us know your user experience.  According to your case description, I do understand how frustrated you are now.

If you feel that performance needs to be improved, you can also submit an idea on

https://ideas.fabric.microsoft.com/ and wait for users with the same needs as you to vote for you and help you realize the idea as soon as possible. Many features of our current products are designed and upgraded bed on customers’ feedback.  With requirements like this increase, the problem may well be released in the future.

Thanks for your understanding.

Best Regards,

Leroy Lu

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[lbendlin]

There is another option, to provide the PDF in Base64 encoding,  and then to use a visual that can Base64 decode.  The problem here is that strings (including Base64 strings) can only be 32K characters long, so you would have to chop the PDF in chunks of no more than 32K bytes and then reassemble them in DAX.