If you're an avid Microsoft 365 customer, you've likely come across File Viewer; the interface that allows you to access non-Office files in services like OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams. It's the technology that allows you to preview and open PDF, CAD, video, and audio files, even enabling users to perform basic image editing and annotation on images. Now, Microsoft has announced a bunch of new capabilities that it is rolling out to File Viewer.

What's new in Microsoft 365 File Viewer?

For starters, Microsoft 365 File Viewer is notably faster now, with files displaying twice as quickly as before. There's also a handy "Open in app" option available directly in File Viewer, which enables users to open content in native applications with the changes being synced seamlessly to OneDrive once the file in question is saved. In addition, you can now see the list of people who have access to certain content by tapping their images and also "favorite" a file through the dedicated icon.

There are other changes in store too, but they are linked to certain premium subscriptions. For example, you can securely request e-signatures, remove pages from PDFs, and merge multiple PDFs into a single file as well. You can also annotate certain file formats like .ai, .tiff, .rtf, .epub, and more, and then use the annotations toggle to include or remove them from view. However, all of this requires a SharePoint Premium subscription. Finally, Copilot integration is in the works too and should be available soon with several capabilities like file summarization and Q&A.

What's the rollout schedule?

Almost all the aforementioned features have started rolling out to commercial customers across OneDrive and SharePoint. They are slated to become available in Teams, along with Copilot capabilities later this year as well. We'll likely find out more details regarding availability in the coming weeks.