By Serdar Yegulalp

KeyView is like Windows 95's Quick View on steroids. This tremendously powerful utility not only lets you preview just about every file format around, but also compress, encode or decode, format-convert and mail files.

The Keyview viewer can be fired up on its own, and can save examined files in all supported formats. It also maintains an interface consistent with the type of data you're browsing. Spreadsheets come up in a gridded format; HTML documents have hotlinks. You can customize the viewer's look and feel. For instance, you might change fonts for text files or rearrange images and types of text (headers, footnotes and so forth) viewed in word processor documents.

KeyView's Utilities submenu makes the program that much more Internet-friendly (and when the name of the company is FTP Software, it only makes sense). Users can encode and decode zip-compress, UUEncode, Binhex-encode, TAR and Z format files with a single right-mouse-button click. Once you specify the kind of encoding you want, all you have to do is specify the target file in a Windows 95-standard Save File As window.

Keyview isn't restricted to text documents-it also supports viewing QuickTime, .AVI, MPEG, .WAV and MIDI files. The program also integrates itself seamlessly with many other programs, including Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes.

Additional document-format drivers are available from FTP Software's Web site. Documentation is top-notch, loaded with screenshots and explanations.

--Info File--
Keyview 5.0
Price: $49.95
Pros: Application integration
Platforms: Windows 95, 3.1x, NT
Disk Space: 8MB
RAM: 8MB
FTP Software
800-282-4FTP, 508-685-4000
WinMag Box Score: 4.5