Jasc Quick View Plus (QV) is a program that reads files ... almost any files.

It is easily installed from a CD, and took about 16.1M on my hard drive for maximum installation, vs the quoted 15M. Win9x or WinNT4x are the only other system requirements. It also comes with slim User's Guide and sells for about $60.

QV is a convenient and useful piece of software to have in one's computer. In the 'olden' days of Win3x, Windows had an excellent file reader. It was called, Write ... which is not the Write contained in Win9x. The Win9x Write doesn't read, among others, .exe and .DLL files. The old Write could easily read any file that came its way.

QV easily reads at least 150 different file types (rough count from a card showing file-types, included in the QV package). Some of the format types read by QV are: Word Processing, DOS, Windows, Macintosh, Spreadsheets, Database, Graphic, Presentation, Compressed, and others supported via plug-in's.

One convenient way of reading files is to use a QV shortcut icon created on the Desktop. 'Drag-and-drop' into the QV icon is then used for reading files. This especially works for all the computer files which are contained in the Explorer window.

The software contains a number of utilities that enhance the reading of imports: Zoom - for changing sizes; Equals - for displaying exact size; Copies - for copying to Clipboard; various Modes - for viewing various preferences of a given document.

I tried reading many different files in the Explorer window. Most all were read successfully: .txt, .tif (graphic), .pdp (used Adobe Acrobat Reader), .jif (code), .bmp (graphic), .hlp (text), .ocx (text), .ver (text), .gif (graphic), .gtx (code), .jar (text), etc. QV software may be configured to view files from browsers, e-mail programs and other applications. Opened files may be manipulated, edited and printed. Some QV file outputs were plain code, which, as such, could be just elements of programs. However, although code may not be of interest to a majority of computer users, a few would find the code of interest. The following examples were not read: .wav (error ... "Uh-Oh"), .psp ("Bad File" ... but files were OK as read by Write).

For its large library of files, QV works easily and smoothly ... and is especially useful for viewing those files whose special, related, decoding software is not at hand.