pCloud has added the ability to preview documents such as .doc, .xls, and .ppt through their web interface. This is a welcome addition to those who use their cloud storage service for office work, as they’ll no longer have to use a separate program to view files.
Although I reviewed pCloud in the past, I decided to take another look at their web interface to see how this new feature works.
After logging in to my account, I uploaded some folders that contained a mix of documents. To preview, you can either right-click on a file and select “Preview” or simply left click on it.
Opening a document brings up a “Preparing file” notification that lasts a few seconds. Loading times are faster on subsequent loadings. This is good, because first-time file previews with pCloud are quite a bit slower than opening a file locally on my computer.
File previews seemed to work exactly as advertised. The previewed file can also be downloaded or shared, with appropriate buttons at the bottom of the screen.
Supported File Formats
pCloud supports previews for a variety of file formats:
- Documents (docx, doc, odt, odg, rtf, pages, dotx, dot, docm, dotm, ott)
- Spreadsheets (xlsx, xls, ods, numbers, xlsb, xltx, xlt, xltm, xlsm, ots)
- Presentations (pptx, ppt, ppsx, pps, odp, key, pot, potm, pptm, ppsm, otp)
- E-books (fb2, azw, pdb, epub)
I was glad to see that open file formats such as OpenOffice are supported. Also surprising was the inclusion of ebooks.
There is no edit functionality, so this won’t compete with services like Google Drive and OneDrive for those features. File previews aren’t a game changer on pCloud’s part, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction.
Geoff Akerlund
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