The PDF Shell component in Acrobat and Acrobat Reader allows you to see the thumbnails of PDF documents in Windows explorer, on both 64-bit and 32-bit versions of Windows. By default, this feature is OFF. You can enable it using a specific setting available in the preferences.
Note:
When the preview suddenly stops working (but has worked in the past). Use Ctrl-Alt-Delete to start the Task Manager. Click on the Processes tab. End the 'AcroRd32' processes (close Acrobat processes). Click on a new pdf in Windows explorer and it should now show up in the preview. To preview a PDF file in Windows Explorer: Open Windows Explorer, and navigate to a folder containing PDF files; In the Windows Explorer dialog, click Show the preview pane (H). The Preview pane appears on the right side of the window. Click on a PDF file for the Preview pane to show the contents of the document. Use the page view options to adjust the view. Sep 26, 2016 PDF Preview for Windows 10 is a free add-in for File Explorer to generate and show thumbnail preview for PDF files. In addition to thumbnail preview, PDF Preview for Windows 10 utility also enables preview for PDF files in File Explorer of Windows 10. That is, you can simply select a PDF file and then click Alt + P hotkey to preview the file.
Windows 10 Explorer Preview No Preview A…
For Acrobat XI and Reader XI, the thumbnails of PDFs are automatically shown in Windows Explorer on Windows 32-bit systems. However, the same is not supported on Windows 64-bit systems.
Show Pdf Preview In Explorer 2017
Open Acrobat or Acrobat Reader. On the Edit menu, choose Preferences.
In the Preferences dialog box, choose General in the Categories list, and then select the Enable PDF thumbnail previews in Windows Explorer check box.
Note:
If you don't see the Enable PDF thumbnail previews in Windows Explorer checkbox, update your Acrobat DC or Acrobat Reader DC to the latest version. To automatically update from the product, choose Help > Check for updates and then follow the steps in the Updater window to download and install the latest updates.
Wait for a few seconds while Acrobat is configured to show thumbnail previews in Windows Explorer.
Note:
In Acrobat Reader, you see a prompt asking for the feature to be added to the current installation. Click Yes to confirm.
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Windows Explorer displayed .pdf files as preview thumbnails on Zill Niazi’s old Windows 7 laptop. But on a new laptop, also running Windows 7, it displays them only as icons. Can this be fixed?
I’m going to guess that your older computer--the one that previewed .pdfs--ran the 32-bit version of Windows 7, and that your new one, with its more powerful processor, uses the 64-bit version. In its 32-bit incarnation, Windows 7 supports .pdf previews, but not in the “improved,” 64-bit product.
Why? If I could read Microsoft’s corporate mind I’d…well, I’d probably suffer a nervous breakdown.
[Email your tech questions to answer@pcworld.com.]
But there are solutions—at least for Windows 7 x64. I'm sorry to say that I haven't found a Windows 8 solution. (If any of you have, please tell us the comments section below.)
Windows 7 users should try Vivid Document Imaging’s PDF Preview for Windows 7. Install it, and Windows Explorer will display thumbnails of each .pdf’s first page. You can also preview the document in Explorer’s Preview pane. I tried this on two computers, and it worked on both.
But not without issues: The installation routine asks if you want to put a shortcut to the program on the desktop. Whether you uncheck that option or not, you’ll get not one but three such shortcuts. You can easily delete them.
File Explorer Preview Pdf
More troubling, the installation saddles you with the company’s own PDF viewer, called simply PDF Viewer. Worse, it tells Windows to make that the default program for .pdfs.
You could, of course, change that default back to your preferred viewer. But in my tests, setting Adobe Reader as the default program robbed PDF Preview of the ability to show thumbnails, although it could still use Windows Explorer’s preview pane. I had no such problem when I set Foxit as my default .pdf program. That’s fine with me, because Foxit is my preferred viewer, anyway.
Windows 10 Show Pdf Preview In Explorer
Note, however, that in my tests, this program doesn't work with Windows 8. Kimberly Taylor of Foxit confirmed, 'On Windows 8.1 64-bit, our PDF Preview program does not work very well. The preview window might fail to show.'