10 Free Quick Look Plugins

Two of the best new features of Leopard are Cover Flow and Quick Look, which auto-magically let you peer inside and examine the contents of your files right from the Finder.

Some of them, anyway. Apple covered the basics with text, images, PDFs, and Microsoft Office and iWork file types, but that still leaves a few stones unturned.

But fortunately for us, Apple made Quick Look extensible, and plenty of little Mac elves have been hard at work solving some of those deficiencies.

So here are 10 free Quick Look plugins to make your Finder browsing experience even better.

Here's the list...

Folders

When you Quick Look a folder Apple's implementation shows you... an icon of a folder. This plugin, on the other hand, shows you the folder and its contents.

Zip Files

This plugin does for zip files what Folder does for folders, and was written by the same author.

Flash Video

Note: you also install the Perian plugin from the link on the same page.

Text Clippings

Cover Flow and Quick Look plugin for text clipping file (.textClipping). and picture clipping file (.pictClipping).

Enscript

Produces colorized output for the languages like PERL, Python, and Java.

Textmate

Renders QuickLook previews for certain filetypes using the TextMate syntax highlighter. Requires TextMate to be running.

XML

Display XML files with indentation and XML syntax coloring.

Illustrator

Partial solution for Illustrator files saved with PDF compatibility.

EPS files

The EPSQLPlugIn displays previews and thumbnails for eps files.

Safari History

Let's you browse your Safari history folder. Enough said.

Installation...

Plugins can be installed in either "/Library/QuickLook/" on your system drive, or in "/Library/QuickLook/" inside your Home folder.

Not free, but...

Many applications have been update to provide new features under Leopard, including Quick Look capabilities.

These include popular programs like Pixelmator and OmniGraffle, so check your favorite program's web site to see if an update is available.

Also, if the freeware solutions for Illustrator and EPS files fail to float your boat, check out SneakPeak Pro from the makers of Art Director's Toolkit, who've written a $15 Quick Look plugin for Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, and Encapsulated PostScript files.

Make your own...

If you're the technical type, Apple also has instructions for rolling your own plugins.

So that's it. Enjoy.