Gmail rolled out to everyone a new feature that lets you preview PowerPoint attachments. "Now you can open PowerPoint attachments as slideshows, without having to download anything. Just click View as slideshow next to the .ppt attachment you want to preview. Since you can open .doc and .xls attachments with Google Docs and Spreadsheets too, there's no need to leave your web browser to check out your Gmail attachments."

The file formats that can be previewed or edited directly from Gmail increased a lot in the last few months, so you can't stop wondering if this is the base for an online hard drive that stores all your files and lets you edit them without having to install desktop clients.

Here's a list of the most important file formats handled by Gmail (simplified view usually means "view as HTML"):

Formats
Simplified view
Full view
Edit
.txt

x

.rtf
x
x
x
.html
x


.doc
x
x
x
.odt (Open Office Document)

x
x
.sxw / .sdw (Star Office Document)
x x
x
.xls
x
x
x
.sxc / .sdc (Star Office Spreadsheet)
x

.ppt
x
x

.sxi / .sdd (Star Office Presentation)
x


.pdf
x


.mp3

x

.bmp/ .gif/ .png/ .jpg/


x


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