Tech giant, Microsoft will soon release a new update for Microsoft Edge through which support for built-in office file viewer will be introduced
Since its introduction, Microsoft’s Chromium-based Edge browser has become my go-to browser, and for good reason. The browser has a number of handy tools, as well as support for Chrome extensions. Microsoft seems to be working on yet another useful tool for it right now.
Microsoft is testing a new Office file viewer within the Edge browser, according to the current Edge Dev channel update. With the new Edge Dev 92.0.873.1 update, the feature was available by default for me. If you don’t have it turned on, here’s where you can have it.
How To Use Built-In Office File Viewer In Microsoft Edge
Image Credits: Beebom
To get started, go to edge:/settings -> Downloads. The latest “Quickly view Office files on the web with Office Viewer” choice can be found here. Simply turn on the knob and you’re ready to go.
So, what is the purpose of this feature? Before now, if you searched the internet for presentations, Word notes, or even spreadsheets and clicked on a direct connection to a ppt, docx, or xls file, your browser will simply download it.
However, with this new functionality, the file can open directly in the Edge window. In reality, you now have a slideshow mode as well as a Notes pane inside the browser for items like presentations. If you just wanted to save the file, you would use the Download button in the toolbar to save the presentation or text to your screen. If you use Bing Search, you’ll see that the functionality has been well implemented.
Image Credits: Beebom
Basically, you can now see a helpful ‘Web View’ option right next to the page for links leading to Office Files, which will open the tab in Edge’s new Office Viewer.
This functionality would be much more valuable to students than it would be to me, but I’m pretty happy about it, even though I’ll just use it a few times in my life. The functionality is only available in Edge Dev, not the stable channel, as previously stated. But there’s no way of knowing when (or if) it’ll be released to the general public, so stay tuned.
