By default Office documents like Word and Excel take the standard icon (I mean the word icon which represents the word document) but if you want to get a cute little preview like the images to get and you can visualize what they look like before you can open it. In this post, we will share how you can create a Thumbnail of Microsoft Office Documents when you save it.
You can not see what’s stored in a document entirely with this, but it can tell if documents first page is filled in or not. The image on the right is precisely about what I am talking. It works with all the Microsoft Office version.
Create Thumbnail of Microsoft Office Documents when you save it
Its simple. You should get this option either when you save it for the first time or when you do save as. Look for Save Thumbnail option there. As soon as you save it, you would get the preview precisely like the image on the top.
If you have already saved the document earlier, use Save as option, and then check the box for creating the thumbnail, and overwrite the existing file. It will generate the thumbnail for you.
Add Tags and Author names while saving Office Documents
Also, If you carefully look, this is the right place even to add authors and tags to the file. You need not hunt places for it. Just make it a habit of tagging it. It will help you organize, and they also show up in Windows Search. Specifically useful if you deal with a lot of documents, and need to sort files based on Author or any other tags which you manage.
What do you think of this feature? Let us know if this helped.
is this options is available with windows vista or office 2007 because i am not able to see this option on my windows xp computer
If you are using Office 2007 on Xp and cant see then it could be a feature of Vista then. I dont have XP any more to test it.
It appears to be harder to find in Windows XP:
In office 2007 on XP, you need to select it as an option in the “document properties” window. The button to activate that window is not available in the default configuration, so you need to add the “properties” button by customizing the toolbars first, then click the button and select “advanced” to get to the “save thumbnail” option.
It sounds like a joke, but this is how to do it. Only about 10 mouse clicks and two minutes time…
In office 2000 on xp the “properties” dialog is available in the files menu, and the thumbnail option not hidden behind an “advanced” button, making the operation a lot simpler.
There is no documented option to save thumbnails pr. default in all documents as far as I can tell. Please do correct me if I’m wrong.
On a more rambling sidenote: OpenOffice saves thumbnails by default on all documents, and find it hard to imagine why Microsoft would choose to omit this feature. Backwards compatibility or just backwards thinking?
hi!
Thanks a lot for this tip. I have some questions:
1) I did exactly what you did and the image of my thumbnail looked deformed. Anything to do to correct it? First page of my document was a picture that looks fine when I simply open the file with word 2007.
2) How can I change lots of documents without having to open one by one and saving as with the option thumbnail?
Thanks again. Waiting for your answer.
Liesbeth
hi!
Thanks a lot for this tip. I have some questions:
1) I did exactly what you did and the image of my thumbnail looked deformed. Anything to do to correct it? First page of my document was a picture that looks fine when I simply open the file with word 2007.
2) How can I change lots of documents without having to open one by one and saving as with the option thumbnail?
Thanks again. Waiting for your answer.