Windows Vista Preview Pane
Just letting you know, if you’re a Windows Vista user, you’re going to love what I have for you today!
One of the options I love and use most often in Windows Vista is the Preview Pane feature, which is located on the right side of Windows Explorer. It is a very handy and useful tool for anyone who needs to scroll through the contents of their files. File types like MS Word, MS Excel, Notepad, Wordpad, audio or video files, etc. can be seen through the Preview Pane. It also brings some extra features along for the various file types. For example, Excel files can be browsed through with the different tabs contained in the spreadsheet and in the case of audio and video files, it presents a mini-embedded Windows Media Player that can be used to view the files. Along with that, you can even copy the contents of the file selectively for the different file types.
If you’re a Vista user, you might have noticed Internet Explorer’s Quick Tabs and Preview Pane. Well, Windows Explorer also has its own Preview Pane that extends beyond live icons and you can definitely see this when you’re navigating through your folders. Windows Vista has finally merged together the interface components from Windows XP, such as the menus, toolbars, navigation pane and the task pane, as you can see in the first picture above. Now, imagine yourself being able to run through all your PowerPoint presentations stored as separate files and determine the exact one you want, without them opening individually. Wouldn’t that be so nice?! Well, here’s how you can do it.
How to Activate the Preview Pane in Windows Explorer:
Using Windows Explorer, go to Organize, Layout and then select the Preview Pane option.
At the bottom of most Explorer windows, there is a Preview Pane, just like the one in this picture:
This pane dynamically changes, depending on which icons are selected. If you select a text file, for example, you’ll see keyword, rating, author and size information, like this:
A music file displays the album title, year, rating, duration, genre and track number, along with an album art representation, just like this picture shows:
You can resize the Preview Pane as well, which reveals even more data information, as seen in this picture:
Or, you can place it on the right side of the window by clicking on the Show/Hide button and selecting Show Preview Pane on Right, just like this:
There you have it. I hope this one helps you to understand the Windows Vista Preview Pane feature just a little bit more. Now, go on and try it out for yourself!
~ Natarajan Kumaraswami
