Look! I can see my qvw from here.

Our friends over at Vizubi, famous for their great NPrinting product, have created a neat little plugin called QlikLook.

Have you ever said to yourself, “Where is that qvw that I did <blank> in?”   Which qvw had that trick for establishing a closed hierarchy?  Where was that expression with the crazy set analysis in it?  Which qvw has that great mini-chart example?  Which qvw out of the 200 scattered throughout my local drive is the one that I am looking for?

QlikLook allows you to preview any QlikView document (qvw) in an Outlook or Windows Explorer preview pane.

In addition, you can browse the sheets and make selections in the preview pane.  Basically you can use it as if you are using the document in a browser from the access point.

You can find the application here .  IT IS FREE.  You will be identified through LinkedIn, thus allowing you to download the executable and license.  The install is straight forward.

Now, if you enable your preview pane in Outlook (in the View menu) and then select an email that has a qvw attachment, the preview pane will fill with the sheets in that qvw.  For Windows Explorer, the preview pane is turned off by default.  To turn it on go to Organize à Layout à and enable Preview Pane. 

Although there is some lag depending on the size of the document, it seems to respond very well and has helped me scan through documents without opening QlikView (or yet another instance of it).

This is an incredibly convenient and useful tool.  I would encourage everyone to check it out.