A file viewer is a Software application that represents the data stored in a

computer file A computer file is a computer resource for recording data in a computer storage device, primarily identified by its file name. Just as words can be written to paper, so can data be written to a computer file. Files can be shared with and trans ...

in a human-readable form. The file contents are formatted in a meaningful way and then displayed on the screen or

printed Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ...

out. Also, they may be read aloud using speech synthesis.

Overview

File viewer applications can be split into the following categories: * File Viewer Only applications do not allow the user to edit files. * File Viewer and Converter applications allow both viewing of data and exporting data in a different

file format A file format is a Computer standard, standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary format, pr ...

or copying information the clipboard. * File Viewer and Editor applications allow the user to view existing file, create a new file of specific type or modify the content of an existing file. Such division of functionality was initially a result of software licensing for proprietary file formats, such as all file formats can be read freely but software license may exist that limits file creation and modification algorithms to be used only by licensor. For example, database software

DBASE dBase (also stylized dBASE) was one of the first database management systems for microcomputers and the most successful in its day. The dBase system includes the core database engine, a query system, a forms engine, and a programming langua ...

used proprietary algorithm for creating

.DBF The .dbf file extension represents the dBase database file. The file type was introduced in 1983 with dBASE II. The file structure has evolved to include many features and capabilities. Several additional file types have been added, to support ...

files, but Norton Commander had a built-in viewer for .DBF files. Acrobat Reader supports viewing of

.PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

files, but another software application such as Adobe Photoshop, LibreOffice or

Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is a word processing software developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name ''Multi-Tool Word'' for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms includi ...

is required to create .PDF files. File viewers need to have structure information about the file format to be viewed in order to handle different byte orders, code pages or newline styles. On contrary, media file viewers, such as Video Player applications may have initially very small number of

file formats A file format is a standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary or free. Some file forma ...

or none recognized, but rely on video codecs to play various media, making their capability to read and represent media file data to the user expandable. Some file viewer may be classified as filters that translate binary files into plain text (e.g., antiword). However, depending on the competence of the translating routines, some information may be lost. Image viewers display graphics files onscreen. Some viewers such as IrfanView are capable of reading multiple graphics file formats but some such as JPEGview are dedicated to a single format. Common image viewer features include thumbnail preview and creation, image zooming and rotation, color balance and gamma correction, resizing etc. A

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

is a type of file viewer, which renders

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...

markup into a human-friendly presentation. Although HTML is stored in plain text files, viewing an HTML file in a browser and in a text editor produces significantly different results. Web browsers may also be used to view

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradi ...

files such as images,

videos Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) sy ...

, pre-formatted documents, interactive environments,

3D models In 3D computer graphics, 3D modeling is the process of developing a mathematical coordinate-based representation of any surface of an object (inanimate or living) in three dimensions via specialized software by manipulating edges, vertices, an ...

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory Modality (human–computer interaction), modalities, including visual, Hearing, auditory, hap ...

and

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), e ...

applets etc.

Examples

Plain text files

* Less (Unix) * Most (Unix) * pg (Unix) * More (command) * vi * notepad

Microsoft Office documents

* Microsoft Word Viewer * Microsoft Excel Viewer * PowerPoint Viewer * Antiword

PDF files

* Adobe Acrobat * Atril * Evince * PDF.js *see :PDF readers

Image files

* Directory Opus * IrfanView * ACDSee * XnView

Video and audio files

* Media Player Classic * Windows Media Player * VLC

Binary files

* Hiew *

UltraEdit UltraEdit is a commercial text editor for Microsoft Windows, Linux and OS X created in 1994 by the founder of IDM Computer Solutions Inc., Ian D. Mead, and owned by Idera, Inc. since August 2021. The editor contains tools for programmers, includi ...

* Midnight Commander *

ExifTool ExifTool is a free and open-source software program for reading, writing, and manipulating image, audio, video, and PDF metadata. It is platform independent, available as both a Perl library (Image::ExifTool) and command-line application. Exi ...

Programming languages source code files

* Notepad++ *

VS Code Visual Studio Code, also commonly referred to as VS Code, is a source-code editor made by Microsoft with the Electron Framework, for Windows, Linux and macOS. Features include support for debugging, syntax highlighting, intelligent code complet ...

VRML and 3D models files

VRML Viewer VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language, pronounced ''vermal'' or by its initials, originally—before 1995—known as the Virtual Reality Markup Language) is a standard file format for representing 3-dimensional (3D) interactive vector graph ...

* FreeWRL * view3dscene *

Microsoft 3D viewer 3D Viewer (formerly Mixed Reality Viewer and before that, View 3D) is a 3D computer graphics viewer and augmented reality application that was first included in Windows 10 1703. It supports the .fbx, .3mf, .obj, and .stl and many more file f ...

Microsoft Project plan files

* Microsoft Project *

Seavus Project Viewer (software) Seavus Project Viewer is a viewer for Microsoft Project files. It reads the native .mpp file format created in any Microsoft Project versions. As a project management software, it is designed to assist users (team members, team leads, project st ...