viewer

The Help Viewer is a service available for applications to display troubleshooting and guidance documentation; however, in some instances the help viewer may just display a blank window, especially after performing upgrades, application installations, or system restores. We recently discussed re-enabling JavaScript as one option for fixing this issue if it crops up; however, there are other possibilities as well.

Preference files MacFixIt reader "Neil" wrote in, mentioning he had fixed this issue by tackling the preference files associated with the viewer. There are three files, all of which are located in the /username/Library/Preferences/ folder:

Every now and then you may need to enter special characters and symbols when writing, which can be for relatively common tasks such as character accents or "degree" signs, but also for more obscure or specialized symbols. In the past, many of these came from using special fonts (Wingdings or Dingbats) that contained these symbols as alternates to the standard alphanumeric characters, but these days fonts make use of the Unicode system and can include hundreds or thousands of available symbols.

As with other PC systems, the Mac keyboard layout is a standard one for the most commonly … Read more

The EPS file format is used for vector-based graphics and other types of images, and it's a fairly common format, supported by such popular programs as Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign, and QuarkXPress. Still, not all image-viewing programs support EPS, and if you're not a graphic designer you may not have a program that can handle it. EPS Viewer is a basic program that lets you view and convert EPS files. It's pretty bare-bones, but it will do the trick if you have an EPS file and no other way to open it.

The program's interface … Read more

Microsoft Word has long been the standard word-processing software, but it's undergone many changes and upgrades in its many years of service. Those still using older versions of Word often can't open newer Word documents in the .docx format, but what if you don't have Word at all? Anyone who needs to open .dockx files created in Word 2007 or 2010 can download DocX Viewer. It's a free utility for opening and viewing newer Word documents, even if you don't have Word or a Word-compatible word processor. You can open and view Word documents in … Read more

Vallen Jpegger is a fast, free, efficient image viewing tool that is capable of displaying virtually any kind of image file (more than 40 file types) as well as music, sound, and other files. It supports lossless JPEG rotation, so you can orient your snapshots without losing any data or clarity. It has fully scalable print support, a command-line option, slideshow mode, and a screenshot tool. It runs in both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows versions, including Windows 7. It also offers a huge range of language options, with more added all the time. It's designed for quickly browsing and … Read more

Adobe's Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format (BDF) is an ASCII-based file format that stores bitmap screen fonts and presents them as text files that can be read by both humans and machines. It's used a lot in Unix, but not so much in Windows. However, as Windows applications spread their capabilities, a growing number of users need to view BDF files in Windows. That's what Chortkeh BDF Font Viewer is for. It's a free, standalone, portable tool that can process BDF font files in Windows and display them in a familiar view. It's part of the … Read more

Microsoft Windows Product Key Viewer is freeware from Daniel Sage Developing that does just one thing: It displays the Product Key Code for your copy of Windows. Why do you need it? You can just right-click Computer and read the code off the system properties dialog--assuming Windows is working normally. But suppose every effort to recover your operating system has failed, and you're resigned to a total reinstallation of Windows. You'll need your Product Key Code to re-activate your reinstalled software, since you probably don't want to pay for it again. But Windows won't start, and … Read more

New document file formats are always cropping up, and on the whole that's a good thing; specialized formats reflect evolving technology. The only real drawback is that in order to make use of these new formats, you often need viewers or players that you don't already have. And who wants a hard drive crammed with software that can only do one thing? STDU Viewer attempts to solve this problem by letting you view a variety of file formats all in one simple program.

STDU Viewer's interface is plain and looks a lot like other document viewers, with … Read more

One of the more frustrating things I experience in daily usage of my Mac is opening a file that launches an unexpected application, which can sometimes result in a failure to open the file. One of the primary examples is when a PDF is created using an Adobe product, associating it with Adobe Reader instead of Mac OS X's built-in PDF reader, Preview.

Luckily if you find that Finder is not opening a particular file type in the proper application, you can change the file associations for all files of the same type. The process is quick and easy … Read more