Quick Look screenshot |
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| Developer(s) | Apple Inc. |
| Initial release | October 26, 2007 (Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard") |
| Operating system | Mac OS X |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | Quick Look |
Quick Look is a quick preview feature developed by Apple which was introduced in their operating system, Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard". It was announced and demonstrated at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference 2007.
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While OS X's Finder has always had icon previews, Quick Look allows users to look at the contents of a file in the Finder at full or near-full size, depending on the size of the document relative to the desktop. It can view files including, but not limited to: PDFs, HTML, QuickTime readable media, plain text and RTF text documents, Apple Keynote, Pages and Numbers, ODF documents, Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files (including OOXML), RAW camera images.
To activate Quick Look, select the document and press the space bar (or choose File > Quick Look, Cmd-Y) and the file will be viewable in a separate window. Press space bar again to close, or double-click the window to open the file with its default application.
Quick Look can also be opened in full screen by pressing Opt-Spacebar or Cmd-Opt-Y in the Finder. Press the Escape key (esc) to exit full screen.
Quick Look can also be launched from the command line (e.g. a shell in Terminal) by entering qlmanage -p [filename].
Additionally, multi-page documents like Powerpoint slide shows can be navigated by hovering the cursor over the file's icon in the Finder, and using the left and right arrows that appear to browse the document.
Quick Look technology is implemented throughout Mac OS X v10.5+. Some examples are iChat Theater, Time Machine and the Cover Flow view on the Finder.
There are various file formats not supported by default Quick Look or Cover Flow:
Support for additional formats can be achieved via use of 3rd party plug-ins.