Microsoft is looking to turn its new web browser, Edge, into an all-in-one tool. In addition to packing a host of functions and features to compete directly against Chrome, Microsoft has also improved many of Google’s native browser functions, such as the PDF viewer. Now, Microsoft wants to cover other types of files and allow users to open them directly in the browser, without having to install anything else or even download them from the Internet: Office documents.
When someone shares an Office file (a Word , an Excel sheet, etc.) over the Internet, they have to be downloaded like any other file in order to open them. And, once the files have been copied to the PC, they have to be opened with their corresponding program.
Microsoft, in an effort to take the utility of its web browser to a new level, has managed to add a compatibility layer to the browser to be able to open any Office document from it, even without having to download it to the PC. When accessing it, what we will see will be a window like the following one from which we will be able to the document in question.
We will also have several options at hand, such as the ability to download the file to the PC, copy it to OneDrive and even print it. Broadly speaking, it is a viewer very similar to Edge’s PDF viewer, but focused on Word documents, Excel sheets, and PowerPoint presentations.
How to activate the new Edge feature
Microsoft has made this new feature optional. If we want these files to continue downloading as always, we can deactivate it with one click. And if we want the Office viewer to work again, just one click to start it up again.
To activate it, we just have to enter the Edge Settings section, and in the ” Downloads ” section we will find an option called ” Quickly view Office files on the web with Office Viewer “. We can activate or deactivate the switch depending on whether we want this function to be enabled or not.
Availability
At the moment, Microsoft is only testing this new document viewer on some users of the Canary version (version 90 right now) of the browser. This means that, even if we have this version installed, it may not appear to us.
If development continues well, and the viewer is found to be stable enough, the feature will be enabled for all users of the Canary version of Edge. And, from there, Microsoft will start working to bring this new feature to all users of its browser. When Edge reaches version 90 stable, something that should happen in spring, we could all enjoy this new feature, as well as other features that the company is testing, such as, for example, the safe mode for children .
Edge is already our default PDF viewer on Windows 10, and it wants to be the Word document viewer too. What will be next? A new Edge-based photo viewer for Windows? We will soon know.
