That’s just a precaution by Microsoft, really wording from MS Legal, disclaiming themselves from liability. There’s a security warning before using a preview filter for the first time: “You should only preview files from a trustworthy source”.

The most common extra previewer is a PDF previewer which is installed as part of the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Office comes with previewers for Office file types plus the main image types, HTML files and plain text attachments. Previewers are mostly hidden to us because they are installed automatically with Office or with other products. They are separate from the main program you’d use to view or edit those documents (like Word or Excel). Previewers are plug-ins to Outlook that display a version of the attachment in the preview pane. The main reason why the preview pane is considered ‘safe’ compared to opening the attachment is the ‘previewer’. As you can see, that’s not always enough so some manual rotate options would be nice. Outlook 2016’s image preview supports the JPG orientation flag unlike earlier Outlook releases. For example, the image previewer has no rotate or zoom options. The previewers are limited, sometimes too limited. You can preview another Outlook message that’s been forwarded or saved as an attachment.

That’s a combination of the previewer’s limitations and the narrow column for the preview pane. The preview of Office documents works pretty well but can get messed up if the document has complex formatting. Old habits die hard.Ĭlick on the attachment and Outlook switch from a preview of the email to previewing the attachment.Ĭlick on ‘Back to message’ to switch between the attachment preview and the message itself. Despite the official rename, many people still call it a preview pane. Microsoft now calls it a Reading Pane which recognizes that many people read and respond to messages from the side-pane alone. The standard preview pane hasn’t changed a lot for many versions of Outlook. Here’s an in-depth look at a deceptively simple part of Outlook. The Outlook preview pane isn’t just convenient, it’s a good front line defence against hackers and viruses.

Outlook 2016 preview pane blank