File previews are all over Windows Vista and Windows 7, including the Preview pane in Windows Explorer windows and Taskbar previews, but Apple has always been ahead here. The Preview pane came from the column view in Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah in 2000. The Windows Preview pane has now caught up to Mac OS X's with the ability to play audio and movies, but it still doesn't display text formatting. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard added the Cover Flow view for rapid viewing of multiple previews, but the ultimate preview is its Quick Look, which is resizable up to full screen -- and lets you look at every page of a document.
