Preview files in Google Drive

It may sound obvious, but sometimes the best way to find something is to start looking. Beginning today, Google Drive will let you quickly preview more than 30 file types and quickly flip between files until you find the one you want.

You’ll see the new preview automatically if you open a photo, video, or PDF. To see a preview of a Google document, right-click on the file name and select “preview.” Once the preview window is open, you can click on the arrows on either side to flip to other files. And right from within the preview, you can watch video files or scroll through multi-page documents.

You can select and copy text from the preview -- even for a PDF or Microsoft Word document -- or use the zoom buttons to see a file in more detail. Each file preview also gives you one-click access to share, download, print or open a file for editing.

This feature will roll out over the next few days.

Posted by: Ian Kilpatrick, Google Drive Engineer

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12 new file formats in the Google Docs Viewer

Cross posted on the Official Gmail blog

The Google Docs Viewer is used by millions of people every day to quickly view PDFs, Microsoft Word documents and PowerPoint presentations online. Not only is viewing files in your browser far more secure than downloading and opening them locally, but it also saves time and doesn’t clutter up your hard-drive with unwanted files.

Today we’re excited to launch support for 12 new file types:

• Microsoft Excel (.XLS and .XLSX)
  
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 / 2010 (.PPTX)
  
• Apple Pages (.PAGES)
  
• Adobe Illustrator (.AI)
  
• Adobe Photoshop (.PSD)
  
• Autodesk AutoCad (.DXF)
  
• Scalable Vector Graphics (.SVG)
  
• PostScript (.EPS, .PS)
  
• TrueType (.TTF)
  
• XML Paper Specification (.XPS)

Not only does this round out support for the major Microsoft Office file types (we now support DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, XLS and XLSX), but it also adds quick viewing capabilities for many of the most popular and highly-requested document and image types.

In Gmail, these types of attachments will now show a “View” link, and clicking on this link will bring up the Google Docs Viewer.




You can also upload and share these files in Google Docs, so that anyone can view the content using their browser.

And as always, the Google Docs Viewer is available for use on any website, with both a full Chrome and embedded option. More information can be found here.

Posted by: Anil Sabharwal, Product Manager

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Google Docs Viewer on Mobile Browsers

Cross posted on the Google Mobile Blog

Last week, we announced that the Google Docs viewer supports .doc and .docx attachments. Today we’re also releasing a mobile version of the Google Docs viewer for Android, iPhone and iPad to help you view PDFs, .ppt, .doc and .docx files you’ve uploaded to your documents list, without needing to download the file.



With our mobile viewer you can switch quickly between pages and pan/zoom within a page. On your iPhone and iPad, you can pinch to zoom in or out.

You can try it out by going to docs.google.com on your Android-powered device, iPad or iPhone and select any document in these formats that you've previously uploaded. Let us know what you think in the Mobile Help Forum.

Posted by: Mickey Kataria, Software Engineer

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View .doc attachments right in your browser

Cross posted on the Gmail blog

If you receive Microsoft® Word files as attachments in Gmail, you can now view them with a single click -- no need to download, save, and open files with a desktop application when all you want to do is have a peek. The Google Docs viewer that allows you to view .pdf, .ppt, and .tiff files in your browser now supports .doc and .docx formats too. Just click the "View" link at the bottom of a Gmail message and the viewer will take it from there.

If you decide you want to edit the file, clicking "Edit online" will open it in Google Docs, or you can download it to your desktop from there.

Posted by: Marc Miller, Software Engineer

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Google Docs viewer Chrome extension

The Google Chrome team launched beta support for extensions on Tuesday. We didn't want to miss the extension party, so we created a Google Docs extension. The Google Docs PDF/Powerpoint Viewer makes it easy to preview PDFs, Powerpoint presentations, and other documents you find across the web in the Google Docs viewer, instead of downloading them.

Let us know how you like the extension and what you like to see us add by posting a review on our extension's page.

Note that extensions are currently available only for the beta channel of Google Chrome for Windows and Linux.

Happy viewing!

Posted by: Wes Carr and Jesse Kinkead, Software Engineers, Google Docs

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Google Docs previews in Gmail

Starting today, you can preview Google documents, spreadsheets, or presentations right in your Gmail inbox by enabling a new Gmail Labs feature, Google Docs previews.


For more information on Google Docs previews in Gmail, check out the post on the Gmail blog.

Posted by: Steven Saviano, Software Engineer

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Quickly view formatted PDFs in your search results

Two weeks ago, we launched the Google Docs viewer, which made it easier for webmasters to embed PDFs in their sites and let visitors view these PDFs in their browsers with the formatting intact. Today, the search team has brought the same functionality to PDFs in Google search results. To learn more, check out the post on the Official Google Blog.

Posted by: Jesse Kinkead, Software Engineer

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View online files using the Google Docs Viewer

Last year, we added PDF upload and view to Google Docs, and the "View" link for PDF attachments in Gmail. We also added support for viewing PowerPoint and TIFF files in Gmail this April. Feedback on these features has been very positive - viewing files right in your browser is fast, and it keeps your downloads folder clean. Plus, it spares you the hassle of saving your files to the machine you're using, which could be a shared or public computer.

Starting today, we're opening up this technology to all webmasters and blog owners with the Google Docs viewer. All you have to do is give the URL of a PDF, Powerpoint or TIFF document to us and we'll display it directly in your browser with no download required - like this. For complete documentation, and a form to generate code for embedded viewers (example below), check out our webpage.



Are you a Box.net user? You'll be happy to know you can use this service to view documents stored within your Box - just add the Google Docs Viewer OpenBox Service to your account.

Enjoy!

Posted by: Jesse Kinkead, Software Engineer

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