Flagged: Quick Look Tips

Quick Look – that new ability of the finder to display a file's content, without involing the normally-associated application – is a sleeper hit among Leopard's 300+ new features. I find it useful all over the place.

Want to see some good things you can do with Quick Look?

10 ways to get the most out of Quick Look

And while I haven't seen this played up as much as it should be, there's another great thing about Quick Look: it can really save money for some users. More than enough to pay back the cost of Leopard, even. Here's how:

Quick Look can be a huge boon for people who receive files in proprietary formats but don't own the appropriate software to open the files. Case in point: I know a Mac owner who often receives photos and other fun stuff crammed into – for no good reason – PowerPoint files. This is presumably the work of pals who have swiped a copy of PowerPoint from the office, and think such a slideshow a fine way to send a few vacation photos – though it's actually a lot more of a nuisance for the recipient than plain old flexible image files.

This Mac owner doesn't own PowerPoint or any other software that opens PowerPoint files, and has no need for such applications (nor that sort of spare change floating about). Nor is she the sort of geek who'd enjoy searching for workarounds. So in the past I've had to tell her, "sorry, ask your friends to please not send photos in that unnecessary format". (Unfortunately, a word like "format" just adds to panic and confusion in those quarters...)

Quick Look to the rescue. Said user hasn't done the Leopard yet, but when she does, those PowerPoint files will no longer be a headache. Quick Look won't let her create or edit PowerPoint, but again, she just wants to see what's inside. The perfect matching of problem and solution. Quick Look saves time and money.