Just let me look at that file... QuickDataView is live!

You know those moments when you have a file and just want to see what’s inside? A CSV export, some JSON, a spreadsheet someone sent over. Just a quick look before deciding what to do with it.

Especially when you’re on a computer without the proper tools installed. Or just on your phone, trying to figure out what someone sent you.

That’s the idea behind QuickDataView, which I just released. 👋

The goal is pretty simple: a small, low-level previewer with enough power to be useful. Open the page, drop in a file, have a look. No account, no installation, no uploading your file somewhere just to find out what’s in it.

It started with CSV and JSON. Which sounds like a perfectly reasonable place to stop.

Apparently my brain disagreed. 😅

Now it handles around a dozen file types: spreadsheets, Word documents, PDFs, text and logs, XML, YAML, Markdown, pictures… and yes, even OCR. Text stuck in a picture or a scanned PDF? You can turn it into text right there in your browser.

Under the hood, JavaScript and WebAssembly do the work. The processing happens client-side, on your own device. Your files stay with you, including when you use OCR. Bigger files can take a little longer; your device is doing the heavy lifting.

You can search and sort across all supported file types. For JSON you can also poke around nested data. For spreadsheets you can switch sheets and inspect formulas. Little things that make that “quick look” a bit more useful.

And that’s still the point, even after adding all those formats: keep opening a file simple.

👉 Give QuickDataView a try. There are sample files on the page if you just want to poke around.

Let me know what you think. Or which file type makes you go “ugh, how do I open this one?”