Since the release of Office 2007, Outlook 2007 has included a nifty preview feature where you can see the contents of Office documents within Outlook itself, without needing to load up the entire program. Adobe included a preview handler into Acrobat 8.1, so previewing of PDF files within Outlook would also be possible.

These preview handlers (which tell Outlook how to preview the file) can save a lot of time, as there is no need to load up an entire program to view a document. So, we are covered for the standard Office documents and PDFs, but what about other types of files like audio or video files?

I came across a site jam packed with with these preview handlers ready to download, and a few links to other sites on the topic. The site features a preview handler that uses Windows Media Players ActiveX. This means that a wide range of media files can be previewed from within Outlook 2007. There is no need for external media players to be tampered with anymore, nor playlists altered.

Also on this site are handlers for previewing zip files, html files and various other source code files. After installing these packs, I can’t think of any file I would would want to preview that is not supported.

These handlers work in both XP and Vista, but they do require MS Outlook 2007.

For a lot more information, and the downloads, check out the Azar Family Site.