File Viewers
Unless your coworkers and
friends all use exactly the same applications you do, you'll find it worthwhile
to invest in a file viewer. These stand-alone products go well beyond the
bare-bones capabilities of Windows' Quick View utility, which can't handle
newer formats such as Microsoft's own Office 97 files and has almost no extra
capabilities (such as file compression). Third-party viewers allow you to
view and print documents created in a wide variety of applications without
having to load those programs.
| SUMMARY |  |
|
Drag and View 4.0a
PRO: Inexpensive, with great image processing and conversion features.
CON: Doesn't retain formatting, doesn't unzip files,
supports fewer file types than other packages.
Canyon Software
800/280-3691
www.canyonsw.com
|
|
If you're mainly interested
in working with bit-mapped graphics files, Canyon Software's $35 Drag and
View 4.0a is your best choice among file viewers. Like a full-fledged image
editor, for example, it lets you adjust color and resolution. Otherwise, Drag
and View lags behind all of its competitors: It can't identify files that
lack the correct extension, and it displays unrecognized files as garbage
or in alarming hexadecimal form. Drag and View also has trouble handling less
popular word processing, spreadsheet, and database file types; and it displays
those it does support as plain text.
| SUMMARY | |
|
E-ttachment
Opener 1.0
PRO: Converts file attachments,
unzips files.
CON: Can't zoom the display or print out
a file without launching the file's application first.
DataViz
800/733-0030
www.dataviz.com
|
|
The good news: Your coworker
finally e-mailed you that report. The bad news: It became a flood of garbage
characters when you opened it. Time to call in DataViz's $40 E-ttachment Opener
1.0. This file viewer specializes in rescuing attachments that get turned
into gobbledygook as a result of UUencode, BinHex, or MIME conversion: Just
copy the garbage to the Clipboard, and E-ttachment Opener turns it into a
viewable file. (Quick View Plus and KeyView Pro handle the same problem, but
less elegantly.) Judged strictly as a file viewer, though, E-ttachment Opener
is a mixed bag. Though it can unzip files and offers more file formats than
Drag and View--including many for the Mac--it falls far short of Quick View
Plus and KeyView Pro in recognizing arcane PC file types. And it can't zoom
in to show you the display at different magnification levels or print a document
without opening it first. Nevertheless, if your e-mail program is turning
attachments into junk, E-ttachment Opener may well be worth considering.
| SUMMARY | |
|
KeyView Pro 6.0
PRO:
Supports many file types, converts various file formats, compresses and decompresses
files.
CON: Can't display databases.
Verity Software
408/541-1500
www.keyview.com
|
|
In many respects,
Verity Software's KeyView Pro 6.0 gives Quick View Plus, our Best Buy, some
pretty tough competition. Like that package, it's easy to use and supports
more than 200 file types, and it does nearly as good a job of preserving documents'
fonts and formatting. It goes beyond the basics, too, letting you compress
and decompress files in various formats and convert word processing documents,
spreadsheet files, and graphics files. Considering these extra features and
its $40 street price, KeyView Pro would be neck-and-neck with Quick View Plus
for Best Buy status if not for one glaring omission: It's the only viewer
here that can't display databases. If you never, ever use database files and
you want to save $9, KeyView is worth considering. But for a more complete
package, stick with Quick View Plus, our Best Buy.
| SUMMARY | |
|
Quick
View Plus 4.5
PRO: Easy to use, tight
integration with Windows, supports a wide range of file formats, unzips files.
CON: Most expensive viewer, doesn't support Word Pro
or PowerPoint 97.
Inso
800/733-5799
www.inso.com
|
|
As its name suggests, Inso's Quick View Plus 4.5 is a beefed-up version
of the Quick View utility that's built into Windows 95. It's just as easy
to use, and it adds more than 170 formats to Quick View's skimpy 30, including
oldies like WordStar, newcomers such as Word 97, and some Macintosh types.
Though no viewer displays every document perfectly, Quick View Plus does the
best job of preserving fancy formatting, and it integrates into any program
that works with Quick View. Our only complaint: The version we tested couldn't
view Microsoft PowerPoint 97 or Lotus Word Pro files. (Inso was finishing
up a PowerPoint filter at press time, and a Word Pro filter is available on
Lotus's Web site.) At $49, it's also a bit expensive. These hitches aside,
Quick View Plus's simplicity and file-format fluency make it our Best Buy.
Ad Choices