Have you ever been looking for a particular document and found yourself staring at a long list of file names in Windows Explorer, not knowing which is the right one to open? The Windows Preview Pane is an often ignored feature of Windows 7 that allows you to preview documents, pictures, and other files without having to open the application needed to view the file.
By default, the Windows Preview Pane is turned off. To turn it on, follow these steps:
- Click Start –> Computer to open Windows Explorer
- Double-click the C:\ drive to open the contents of your hard drive.
- Click Organize –> Layout –> Preview Pane in order to enable the Windows preview pane. The pane will appear to the right of the file listing.
Now, you should be able to click on any file in order to view its contents at a glance.
Some file types do not allow you to view the preview without having the correct application installed. For example, you may not be able to preview Word documents unless Microsoft Word is installed on your computer. Of course, it’s not very likely that you will want to preview Word docs unless you have Word installed, so this proves to be a minor problem.
In Windows 7, the preview pane can be accessed quickly via a small button on the upper right corner of Windows Explorer. This button looks like a tiny open window. If you hover over it, you will notice a tooltip which indicates that you can activate the preview pane by clicking on it.
Notice that if you preview a large document, such as a software user manual in PDF format, the preview pane features left and right buttons that allow you to navigate through the document preview. A status label tells you the number of pages in the document, as well as the number of the current page you are previewing. An icon that looks like a tiny page in the preview pane, allows you to view the entire page onscreen.
Tags: preview documents, preview pane, windows 7 preview pane, windows explorer, windows preview pane