File Previewer Question

[Wow]

I cannot preview MS Office documents in IMatch and I assume this is because IMatch uses the default Windows file viewers. As I cannot preview MS Office documents in Windows Explorer either. I can however preview them in Directory Opus which is what I use instead of Explorer.

I've spent 2 hours trying to fix the Explorer preview issues using various Google methods from people with the same issue, doing everything from registry changes to reinstalling repairing Office. No luck. Is there any way I can use a different viewer for IMatch? If I'm not mistaken some programs I've used in the past allow me to manually install files for certain viewers.

Thanks

[Mario]

IMatch uses the standard "thumbnail handlers" for formats like Office.
They are installed and activated when you install Office. Maybe your Office installation is outdated or damaged? Try to reinstall Office to reinstall their shell handlers and then select the Office documents in IMatch, press Shift+Ctrl+F5 and choose "Force Update" to re-generate thumbnails.

You may also need to make sure to configure Office to save thumbnails by enabling the "save thumbnail" option. See the Office documentation or Google for details.

Regarding your other question: Opening Files in Other Applications

[Wow]

Thanks, I had to completely uninstall and reinstall Office to get the preview of office files working in windows explorer again. However they still don't preview in IMatch as shown in attached screenshot. I did rescan the folders in IMatch as well as close and reopen IMatch, but still no previews. Any suggestions? I was really hoping to have IMatch functioning as a full fledged DAM for some weekend work I'll be doing :-).

[Wow]

I also just tried completely removing a folder from the database and re-adding it, but that does not fix it either.

[Wow]

Visio files display like this in IMatch, even though they now display perfectly in the preview pane of windows explorer. I'm lost at this point. Reinstall IMatch maybe?

EDIT: Reinstalled IMatch, no luck with previewing Office files nor fixing the Visio previews.

[Wow]

NEW EDIT: So I am guessing this is another freaking Microsoft issue  , because what I am seeing is new Word docs show an entire page for the icon in windows explorer, and therefore can be fully previewed in the IMatch Quick View window. However Excel docs only show a very small snippet on the windows explorer icon, ergo IMatch can only display a very small snippet. Please let me know if there is any way to change that. Is it possible to set Excel documents so the IMatch viewer is looking at the actual doc and not cache? But I would want to do that only for Excel.

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OLD:
Since a post can only be edited for so long I'm adding on comments as I work at this and make some progress. So what I've discovered is if a Word or Excel file is a later format (in this case Office 2016), and I've made sure to "save as thumbnail", that thumbnail will indeed display in IMatch. So far so good.

However the IMatch Quick View window as well as the Viewer window also only shows the thumbnail (which is just a small snippet of the document). Surely that cannot be right? Example attached of what shows up in the Quick View and Viewer window.

Thanks!

[Mario]

IMatch just uses the shell thumbnail handler installed by Office (via a Windows function). The shell handler part of Office. I cannot control how it works or if and which size of previews it produces.
Make sure you always save your Office documents with a thumbnail, which is optional.

[Jingo]

I was going to mention that the "embedded preview" needs to be saved for previews to typically show in your system.  I use XYPlorer and you can "Mouse Down Hover" to see a preview of files.  Works perfectly 100% for image files like JPG.. but PDF and MSWord only work if the "preview" is embedded which isn't a default on feature I find.  A quick resave of the document with this feature ticked should solve the problem.