Preview Illustrator (and InDesign) files in Leopard

Have you upgraded to Leopard yet? If so, you'll find this interesting.

I've always been annoyed that I can't preview my Illustrator (or InDesign) files on my Mac. And to have to open a file just to see what's in it isn't much fun. Sure, you can use Adobe Bridge, but I don't usually have that application open. More importantly, I'm interested in viewing my files in context -- for example, if someone emails me a file, I want to quickly take a look at it. If I'm placing a file in an app, I want to quickly see a preview in the Place dialog (for whatever app). Heck, I even want to see previews in the file's icon (like how Photoshop does).

Turns out that Apple's Leopard OS (Mac OS 10.5) has a feature called QuickLook which allows you to quickly preview files in context. It's actually rather cool. When I first read of it, I'll admit I thought it was a stupid feature. But then when I installed Leopard, I found out Quicklook is everywhere! No matter where you are (in Mail, in the Finder, literally anywhere), you can get nice previews of your files.

But it gets better. Quicklook is something that other developers can tap into.

Code-Line software (they make the Art Files app for collect for output for AI files) just released SneakPeekPro, which extends the functionality of QuickLook to preview EPS, AI, and INDD files. Not only that, SneakPeekPro also pulls the metadata from CS3 files to also list what swatches, fonts, and placed images are in the file! All without having to open the file.

I love it!