If you are using any of the popular document formats on your desktop (MS Office DOC, OpenOffice ODT, Wordperfect WPD and Adobe PDF) you will prefer to preview and search for text in these files, when hunting for that old letter or invoice. If you opted for a full install of these office suits most probably you will have the search and preview functionality already set and working. When you select such a document in xplorer² professional you will see a plain text preview in the quickviewer (draft tab), indicating all is working properly. If on the other hand you see gibberish (the layman's term for HEX preview :) then something is amiss. There are a few common sticky issues: The IFilter plugin for the document class isn't installed Or the wrong version is installed (especially on 64 bit windows)

Order can be restored by installing the correct plugin. The open architecture of windows shell allows each document type to provide a so called IFilter plugin, that enables the plain text access for searching and preview. These namespace extensions are meant for Microsoft indexing service and Windows desktop search but xplorer² professional can also tap into them. Who said that xplorer² doesn't have an API for extensibility?

I have googled for the most popular text filter formats and here are the download links for your convenience (all are completely free or free for personal use).

• Microsoft Office Suite (DOC, XLS, DOCX etc). Usually these are already installed if you use MS office, but you may need them if you have an older office version like 2003 and you want to manage newer DOCX formats.
   
• Foxit PDF reader. This is free (basic desktop version) but requires registration. Most people just need to install the latest version of Adobe Reader and they get the PDF filter in the bundle.
   
• Openoffice/StarOffice documents (ODP, ODS and ODT). This is the open source MS office alternative that many people use. Scroll all the way down for the free version.
   
• Wordperfect WPD documents. Wordperfect was king once upon a time but there are people still using WPD documents.

You only need these extensions if the preview doesn't work already or you cannot find text in these document formats, otherwise you are already all set. Make sure you match the 32/64 bit version of the plugin you want to use with xplorer². This is especially true for Adobe that only offers 32 bit version PDF IFilter, so if you want to use text services with xplorer² 64 bit you must get the Foxit reader plugin mentioned above.

Finally remember that to search for text in complex document types you must tick the search non-text files option (also known as search all files in find files and similar dialogs). Another useful command enabled by text filters is Edit > Extract text menu. As the name implies you can extract the pure text without formatting from complex DOC/PDF/ODT/WPD documents.

And now you have your desktop search all sorted, try to get your head around this contraption.

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