Preview of .odt files in Windows' File Explorer

If the thumbnail of the document is not large enough for you, you can enable the “Preview pane” in the Windows file explorer. In Windows 11 it is on the right side of file explorer.

@Regina: I don’t get any Preview … I’ll get the message “No Preview available.”

You can specify in the document whether a preview image is to be created.
Menu File > Properties > General

Yes, all my docs have always been enabled. And still are. Thanks.

AFAIK you need to have a Microsoft product installed that can read the file.
You might like to see this old discussion, is there a way to preview a libre doc or spreadsheet in the windows explorer preview pane? . I don’t know if anything has changed since then as I would not use preview anyway, preferring a logical filing structure and appropriate filenames

ChatGPT:

Maybe one has to ask ChatGPT about the philosophical difference between need and requirement regarding software dependencies and functionality and whether it’s a necessity to understand the nonsense it generates. In any case, it’s possibly true that you don’t need MS-Word to see the files in the Preview Pane, but it might be true that with MS-Word installed you may actually preview them there.

That’s what you get for asking a bullshit generator.

@Regina In your screenshot it’s clearly viesible that .odt file previews in the pane are possible. May I ask you if you have any Microsoft products installed that support that preview, e.g. Word?

I see the same as Regina. Your answer may be: Yes, as Win11 is by Microsoft and no, I neither installed any MS-Office, nor started any of the given tools (except Edge to download Firefox).
.
On Win10 the preview area shows the same icon-size preview as the file-list. (On that computer I don’t see a preview of .doc-files, but a small one for .odt. And TXT, BAT and pdf are shown readable like in Win11)

Yes, I have a MS Office 365.

It’s best to check an ODS. It would necessarily show some controls in the preview area (tabs); and there, you would be able to easily see which app has generated them.

Good tip. The tabs in the preview are the same as in Excel 365, e.g. a colored tab is rendered with gradient, the horizontal scroll bar is separated by a dotted line from the rest.

Hi,

the explorer preview shows the thumbnail.png stored in your .odt. I tested that by replacing it with a different image. So no external renderer or M$ installation should be required.

@Huskey you should check your Tools▸Options▸LibreOffice▸Advanced▸Expert Configuration▸ /org.openoffice.Office.Common/Save/Document▸GenerateThumbnail option. It should be set to true.

taken from How do I turn on thumbnail previews in LibreOffice Writer?

@ms777 Thanks but it was on True.

@mikekaganski Sorry have blockage but what is an ODS?

@Wanderer What do you have or have changed what I haven’t. It seems like you have the same setup.

Open Document Sheet, so a file from Calc.

At that time seemingly nothing was changed, as I was testing a mini-PC with the Windows 11 Home the vendor delivered in my guest-network. So should be stock Windows…

With a standard 30 day free trial of MS Office?