Improve QuickLook Functionality With These 5 Excellent Plugins [Mac Tip]

By Franklin Davis on Jan 28, 2008 filed under Apple, Lists | Comments

One of Leopard’s 300 new features was QuickLook (QL), a utility that allows the user to view the contents of a file without even opening it. This ability to quickly preview files is one of my favorite new features in Leopard. QuickLook is activated by pressing the spacebar on any highlighted file or folder. The QL plugins described below enhance QL’s built-in abilities and allow you to view folder contents, highlight code (virtually any language), peak inside ZIP files, and even preview EPS and Adobe Illustrator files. Continue reading to find out how to install and download these QL plugins.

To install a QL plugin simply drag the .qlgenerator file into ~/Library/QuickLook/ (where ~/ indicates your home directory) and give Finder a few minutes to recognize the changes. If patience isn’t one of your strengths, plugins can be activated instantly by restarting Finder or logging out. Here are the 5 QuickLook plugins I find most useful.

Top 5 QuickLook Plugins

BetterZip Quick Look Generator allows the previewing of a wide array of compressed file types. File formats that are currently supported include: ZIP, TAR, GZip, BZip2, ARJ, LZH, ISO, CHM, CAB, CPIO, RAR, 7-Zip, DEB, RPM, StuffIt’s SIT, DiskDoubler, BinHex, and MacBinary.

QLColorCode allows for integration with Pygments to render source code with syntax highlighting. Works very well on C++, Matlab, HTML, etc.

Adobe Illustrator Viewer allows viewing of Adobe Illustrator files; however, the files must be saved with PDF compatibility.

EPSQLPlugIn EPS Viewer allows previews and thumbnails for EPS files. If you work with lots of .eps files this is especially nice because it enables a Finder preview icon as well.

Folder Viewer allows the previewing of folders by replacing the default view of an enlarged icon with a preview of the folder’s contents.