Chromebook already supports viewing of Microsoft Office files like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint directly in the browser, Google has now ported this functionality in form of an extension to Google Chrome (Beta) users on Windows and Mac.
Office Viewer Extension for Google Chrome
Chrome Office Viewer extension is quite similar to Chrome’s PDF Viewer. You either need to be using Bet or dev. or canary builds to install this extension which is of size 25 MB and then try to open any office document on web as Chrome PDF Viewer will load it. It may take a while to appear on the screen.
Chrome Office Viewer is more secured, it can protect you from malicious office documents with Sandbox integrated into it like to browser and PDF viewer plugin which prevents malware .
Google says” In addition to saving you time, the Chrome Office Viewer also protects you from malware delivered via Office files. Just like with web pages and PDFs, we’ve added a specialized sandbox to impede attackers who use compromised Office files to try to steal private information or monitor your activities.”
Unlike to PDF Viewer, Office Viewer extension doesn’t opens Office files you drop from your hard drive. This extension supports these office formats: .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx,.ppt, pptx.
At present you can view these files only, you can’t edit them. Let us see when Google adds this functionality natively into its browser for all.
Chrome Office Viewer extension is in beta, you can download this from here.