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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.