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Previewing Attachments in Outlook

Next time someone sends you an attachment, instead of double-clicking, try single-clicking on it. Outlook 2007 has a great new feature that previews an attachment when you single-click on it:

Example showing Outlook previewing a JPG attachment in the Reading Pane.

Outlook can preview many common types of files. Images work great, as do files created in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Visio. If you are using Windows Vista you can also preview audio and video files. With Adobe Reader 8.1 installed, you can even preview PDF files.

Many previewers allow you to interact with the attachment in some basic ways. For example, the PowerPoint previewer lets you advance through each of the slides in the PowerPoint file, all without leaving Outlook!

PowerPoint's preview handler lets you view the slideshow in the Reading Pane.

All those times you would normally double-click, try single-click. Once you’re done previewing, you can go back to the original message by clicking the “Message” button.

Use the Message button to return to the original e-mail message.

Let me know what you think!

And hey, if you’re a developer and you want to write a preview handler for Outlook and Vista, check out this MSDN article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/07/01/PreviewHandlers/default.aspx.

Andy Brauninger
Outlook Program Manager

Posted: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 8:47 PM by outblog

Comments

Techy News Blog » Previewing Attachments in Outlook said:

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# October 10, 2007 4:08 PM

John-Wayne said:

o_O how long I use Outlook and always make double clicks, thank for this tip.

# October 10, 2007 5:13 PM

subject: exchange said:

Ultimate Inbox: Merging Inbox and Sent Items folders Previewing Attachments in Outlook How to back up

# October 12, 2007 1:52 PM

Jignesh said:

Where can I find other Preview add-ins like Zip file ?

# October 15, 2007 3:28 PM

Karsten said:

Nice. Is it possible to loop through Mails with attachmens and have the focus always on the attachment? We use a fax Server wich attaches the faxes and we have a public folder with only faxes. If i use the button "next mail" it shold show the next fax but i first have to click on the tiff attachment. Is it possible to show the attatchment alwas?

# November 5, 2007 12:52 PM

yc said:

Hi, i'm using outlook 2007.

my outlook not able to view the gif file.

i no problem to to play the gif file in internet explorer.

my machine has installed with Java, i suppose not java issue.

# November 16, 2007 2:15 AM

Bill Bailey said:

Is a previewer available for Microsoft Publisher 2007?

# November 21, 2007 11:44 PM

sarah said:

this is great! i never would have known about this otherwise. thanks for the tip!

# November 28, 2007 9:41 AM

William said:

How can I develop my own perview hander in Windows XP with Outlook 2007?

Are there any thing to reference besides the article of Outlook/Vista

(http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/07/01/PreviewHandlers/default.aspx.)?

Thanks so much.

# December 20, 2007 5:35 AM

William said:

How can I develop my own preview handler for Outlook 2007 in Windows XP?

Is there any referece beside the article for Outlook/Vista?

# December 20, 2007 5:37 AM

msapc said:

My Outlook 2007 cannot preview HTML attachements, saying, it doesn't know how to do it.

Try is yourself.

Why was so obvious feature missed?

# January 14, 2008 7:18 PM

outblog said:

msapc:

Outlook doesn't ship with preview handlers for formats that are not native to Outlook. Outlook only includes previewers for those formats native to Outlook, like e-mail, vCard, or iCalendar formats. Preview handlers are usually implemented by the applications that support the format natively. For example, on Windows Vista a previewer is included for HTML as part of Internet Explorer on Vista.

There are some third party previewers available that support HTML preview on Windows XP. A web search for what you are looking for will help you find a third party solution to preview HTML files on Windows XP.

--Ryan

# January 14, 2008 9:10 PM

msapc said:

Ryan,

Thanks for your hint. I learned much more about preview technology. Still, I'm not a .NET programmer, so I managed to solve the problem with this pack:

http://www.azarfamily.org/previewhandlersforwindowsxp

By this time it's working OK. :)

Still, I believe it was very unwise for Microsoft to abandon XP users, and this is yet another half-baked feature of Outlook2007, along with search and MS Word HTML Rendering.

For those wanting to write own handlers - follow the stated above URL - it contains links to articles and examples with sources.

# January 16, 2008 5:52 AM

jerry vogt said:

i have office  2003 and upgraded to outlook 2007.  How do I get converter for word and excel to use?  I assume it isn't working (except for pdf now) because I don't  have office 2007.

# January 21, 2008 4:28 PM

Guy Yardeni said:

Are there any management controls for this feature in a corporate setting?

We'd like to be able to disable it centrally, disable the link to office online and add future previewers.

Thx.

# February 26, 2008 5:17 PM

trabun said:

I have Visio 2007 installed on XPP w/SP2 along with Office 2007 Enterprise. When I select a Visio attachment, Outlook displays the message "This file cannot be previewed because there are no previewers installed for it."

Is this expected behavior?

# March 25, 2008 8:56 AM
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