No QuikView?

I notice there's no mention of QuikView in document and graphic context menus and file find turns up no QUIKVIEW.EXE. Please tell me that there's something equivelent to QuikView somewhere in XP!

 

Sorry, Shadowhawk, but it doesn't exist in XP (or 2000). I've read that some folks have been able to get the NT version to run, but with some difficulty.

There's always the commercial Quick View Plus, though.

 

#@%#@%ing MS! Why'd they have to go and get rid of QuikView? Now I gotta spend $40! Argh!

 

I never heard of it.

I looked it up, and this is what I found:

"Do you ever want to glimpse at a file on your system without taking
time to open the program that runs it? If so, you can view "rough"
versions of many of your documents in Quikview, which contains
thirty file viewers for viewing different kinds of documents.

Most programs installed on your computer will enable Quikview. If
not, you may enable it yourself within My Computer by choosing
view, options and selecting file types. Here, you can select a file type
that you wish to view, and check enable Quikview. for that type.

How do you access Quikview in order to use it? Simply right click on
a file and choose Quikview. Once the file is open, you can choose to
edit the document within its application by selecting file, open file
for editing. "


Is this what you are talking about? Seems handy, why is it obsolete?

Johanna

 

The original Quick View was a utility built into Win9x, Johanna, but it was quirky, and never seemed to work quite the way it was supposed to ... which, I suspect, is why MS got rid of it.

Quick View Plus was/is a commercial program originally published by Inso, then by Jasc, and now by Avantstar. It was more useful than the MS QV, but it placed a completely useless icon in the systray, which irritated me no end. I think it's been bounced from company to company because, although everyone had high expectations, no one ever made any money from it. To me, it's one of those niche utilities that you either like or dislike ... I found more to dislike.

 

Are there any files I could use to view MS Word 97 docs without actually opening them up in the program? Besides Microsoft Word Viewer, which is one of the trashiest programs I ever came across.

 

WordPad should do it, although it won't necessarily display the formatting correctly.

It should be at Start > All Programs > Accessories > WordPad. Or, if you're working from within Windows Explorer, as I do, right-click on the file, select Open with ..., and double-click on WordPad.

 

Thanks I know about WordPad... I was hoping there was something I could use that'd preserve the formatting. Word documents look nasty in WordPad, LOL.

 

What's the problem with using Word, itself? I use it all the time.

 

It's just a lot of bother to open it up just to read a document. Word takes a lot of memory and resources and I would've rather used something else. Maybe I'll buy that QuikView Plus. Not much choice really.

 

I don't know what you're so concerned about. XP doesn't use up resources the way 9x did, so it's not even worth thinking about.

You have plenty of memory but, were I you, I'd use the $$ you're thinking about spending on QV+ towards more RAM.

It's apparent that you and I use our computers differently. I suspect that most folks, you included, are what I think of as program-oriented. You open Word, either from a Desktop icon or a Start menu icon, then go looking for the document you want to open, hoping that you can remember the name of it, and where it's located.

Instead, I approach things from a file-oriented point of view. As I said earlier, I work primarily from within Windows Explorer ... first I find the document I want to read or work on. Then, all I have to do is double-click on it, and Word opens it. For me, it's a whole lot simpler.

 

You're exactly right. I usually open the program first, then retrieve the document. I think it's less stress on the computer. I know XP is stronger than 98, but old habits and fears die hard...

 

Shadowhawk,
Have you ever tried Open Office? It opens quickly, recognizes just about any file extensions and is FREE. I'm with Jim on the file method. I have a WE icon in Quick Launch I couldn't live without. I can't remember the last time I opened a doc from Word.

Johanna

www.openoffice.org

 

Shadow, I think you're the first person I've ever heard express concern about the amount of stress you might be causing your computer. If I were you, I'd be a lot less worried about stressing the computer, and a lot more worried about stressing myself!

XP, for all its faults, is "strong, like bull!" (or, as we used to say about Soviet women, "strong, like tractor! ")

Johanna has jumped in again before I got a chance to post this, but I think she has a good suggestion about Open Office. I've never used it, but I don't think it has the overhead that Word does.

 

Go to the Microsoft web site and click on the Office button. From there you should be able to find a link to the Word reader/viewer software. Donwload and install it. It uses much less resoures than the regular Word and should be able to open any Word file preior to Word 2003. And it is free.