If you manage any of the following, you no doubt have to find images or videos for them:
Website pages
Blog posts
Content Management System image libraries
Presentations and other documents
With Dash, you can embed Dash assets straight into your sites and applications without having to manually download and upload them first.
What are the benefits of linking to an asset?
The assets are served very quickly, from a CDN (Content Delivery Network). This helps speed up your page loads, which is great for your users and Google likes it too.
It is faster for you. You don't need to manually download an asset and then upload it into your external application
It stays up to date. Once embedded in your application, the asset will automatically reflect any further changes you make to it in Dash. If you upload a new version of the file in Dash, the embed link stays the same.
You can control visibility. If you need to stop the asset from being viewed externally, you can remove the link and this will immediately remove it from external applications.
Creating an embeddable link to an asset
💁♂️ A note on embeddable link filenames
Embed links contain a reference to the filename of the asset. E.g. if your asset is called "myfile.png", the embed link will look something like https://link.assetfile.io/[uniquecode]/myfile.png. This cannot be changed once created, so please check you are happy with your file naming convention before creating embed links, as anyone with the link will be able to see the filename.
Open the asset in Dash that you want to embed in an external application
Click the embed button </> and choose the size of asset you want to create
Click "Copy" to copy the generated link to your clipboard
ℹ️ Note: Select Original to keep the asset's original file format. For images, choosing a preset size or custom resize or crop creates a PNG or JPG version, depending on whether the original format supports transparency.
Adding an embedded asset into an external application
Once you have created your link, simply open up your external application, locate the option to add an embeddable image (look for "insert via URL", "Embed image" or similar - every application will be different), and paste in the link. Hey presto, your image should appear!
Frequently Asked Questions
What file types can I embed?
You can create an embed link for any file type, including videos. Select Original to use the unmodified original file, keeping its format and file extension.
For images, choosing a preset or custom size creates a PNG or JPG version instead, depending on whether the original file format supports transparency.
Can I choose the file format for embed links?
The format depends on the size you select:
Original: Keeps the original file format and extension
Preset or custom size: Creates a PNG if the original image format supports transparency, or a JPG if it doesn't
For example, resizing a PSD creates a PNG embed, while resizing a HEIC creates a JPG embed.
If you need a custom size in another format, resize the asset outside Dash and save it in your desired format. Upload that file to Dash, then select Original when creating its embed link.
Do embed links support transparency?
Yes. If you select Original, the file is used without modification, so any existing transparency is preserved.
For preset or custom sizes, Dash creates a PNG if the original image format supports transparency, preserving any transparent areas. If the original format doesn't support transparency, Dash creates a JPG.
Can I create different crops using the same crop preset?
You can create one embed link per crop preset for each asset. When you first use a crop preset, you choose the crop area. That link then appears against the preset in the dropdown.
To create another embed link with the same dimensions but a different crop area, create a custom embed link. Use the preset's dimensions and choose your new crop area.
Do embed links count towards my download limit?
Each active embed link counts as one download per month. So if you have 25 embed links in use in a given month, that would count as 25 downloads. Read more about what counts as a download in this article.
What happens to the embed link if I update the version of the asset?
If you update the version of an asset, the following will happen:
The embed link will remain the same (to avoid breaking existing active links), meaning the embed link will still contain the version of the filename that was present at the time the link was created.
When someone downloads the asset from the embed link (e.g. by clicking "Save as" in their browser), the asset will be saved using the current filename. This means even though the embed link itself contains the original filename, the assets downloaded to people's computers reflects the latest filename.
What happens to the embed link if I delete the asset?
When an embed link is deleted, or when asset that has an embed link is deleted, the file served by the embed link will be removed from the CDN cache immediately.