IMPORTANT: No additional bug fixes or documentation updates will be released for this version. For the latest information, see the current release documentation.
Elastic Docs ›Kibana Guide [8.1] ›Discover
« Run a search session in the background Explore the fields in your data »

Document Exploreredit

This functionality is in beta and is subject to change. The design and code is less mature than official GA features and is being provided as-is with no warranties. Beta features are not subject to the support SLA of official GA features.

Discover has a Document Explorer with resizable columns, better data sorting and comparison, and a fullscreen view.


To use the Document Explorer instead of the classic document table:

  1. Open Discover.
  2. In the toolbar, click Options, and then click Try Document Explorer.
  3. Turn off the classic view and save the changes.

Reorder and resize columnsedit

Use drag and drop to organize the columns and improve the view of the data.

To reorder columns, do one of the following:

  • Click Columns. In the pop-up, select the column you want to move and drag it to the new location.
  • Click the header of the column you want to move. In the dropdown menu, click Move left or Move right.

To resize a column, drag the right edge of the column header until the column is the width that you want.

Column widths are stored with a saved search. When you visualize saved searches on dashboards, the saved search appears the same as in Discover.

Adjust row heightedit

To set the row height to 1 or more lines, or automatically adjust the height to fit the contents, click the row height icon icon to open the Row height pop-up.

Row height settings for Document Explroer

Sort dataedit

Sort your data by one or more fields, in ascending or descending order. The default sort is based on the time field, from new to old.

  1. In the Document Explorer, click and open the field sorted options.

    Pop-up in Document Explorer for sorting columns

  2. To add more fields to the sort, select from the dropdown menu.

    By default, columns are sorted in the order they are added. For example, to sort by order_date then geo.country_iso_code, make sure order_date appears first.

    Multi field sort in Document Explorer
  3. To change the sort order, select a field in the pop-up, and then drag it to the new location.

Compare dataedit

Narrow your results to a subset documents.

  1. Select the documents you want to compare.

  2. Click and open the documents selected options, and then select Show selected documents only.

    Multi field sort in Document Explorer

Expand documentsedit

Dive into an individual document to inspect its fields, set filters, and view the documents that occurred before and after it.

  1. Click the expand icon double arrow icon to open a flyout with the document details.

    Expanded view in Document Explorer
  2. Scan through the fields and their values, or search for a field by name.

  3. When you find a field of interest, click three dots icon in table column in the Actions column to:

    1. Filter the view of the data
    2. Toggle the field in or out the document table
    3. Pin the field so it stays at the top
  4. For direct access to a particular document, click Single document.
  5. To view documents that occurred before or after the event you are looking at, click Surrounding documents.

View documents in fullscreenedit

To view as much data as possible and eliminate distractions, click the fullscreen icon icon to display the Document Explorer in fullscreen mode.

« Run a search session in the background Explore the fields in your data »