Windows 7 Explorer can't preview PDF files by default. If you want to know what the PDF file contains and the file name is not useful enough, the only option is to open up and see what's inside. But this is really inconvenient especially if there are multiple files you want to check one by one.

PDF preview is a tool that adds PDF preview support into your Windows 7 Explorer, Microsoft Office and Outlook. Once you install the tool, it will automatically configure the explorer preview pane and the reading pane in outlook with PDF support. Here's how the preview of a PDF file in explorer will look like -

The app also changes the thumbnail icons of PDF files to have a small preview as well if icon view is used in explorer.

Here's a list of its features -

  • Preview PDF document - PDF documents can be previewed in thumbnail when it is not opened via the Preview Handler interface in Microsoft Windows 7 and Windows Vista.
  • Thumbnail PDF Icon - The icon of your PDF document is generated on the fly according to the content of the first page of your PDF document.
  • Support PDF files of all versions - Just install the software, and it works with all versions of PDF files.
  • Fast display - The preview thumbnail can be displayed instantly after you mouse click on it.
  • High-quality rendering - PDF Preview for Windows 7 gives your PDF files a high-quality preview thumbnail.
  • Work with 86 different languages - PDF files with Asian, Hebrew, Arabic et al fonts can be opened and viewed without difficulty.
  • 64-bit optimization - On Windows 7 64-bit operating system, PDF Preview works as twice as much faster than on 32-bit.

Of course, PDF preview won't work if your pdf file is encrypted or password protected. But otherwise, PDF preview is a must have tool every Windows7 user and it works on both 32 bit and 64 bit versions.

Download PDF Preview.