Comparison
XLS Editor vs Foretaste
XLS Editor works on spreadsheets through the offidocs.com platform. Foretaste opens a spreadsheet, or almost any other file, from a link and reads it inside your own browser tab.
Everything said about XLS Editor here is in its own words, from its own listing or policy, read on 13 October 2026. Sources
01
Side by side
| What | XLS Editor | Foretaste |
|---|---|---|
| How a spreadsheet link is opened | “It intercepts when you access to xls, xlsx, csv or odf spreadsheets, and it automatically opens it directly using this XLS Editor.” S1 The same listing says: “This XLS Editor extension uses the platform http://www.offidocs.com.” | Right-click a file link or press the button beside it. The file is fetched from the site it is on and read inside Foretaste’s own tab. No file, file name or address goes to a Foretaste server. |
| Finding spreadsheet links as you browse | “IMPORTANT: This extension scans the URLs browsed in order to detect XLS files.” “The scanning is performed from our servers so your URL are reported to our system.” S1 The same listing says “No personal data is collected.” and “This scan can be disabled with a checkbox that appears in the extension popup.”, adding that without it “the extension functionality is very limited.” | Whether a link is a file is decided inside the page, from its address and the page’s own HTML. Nothing is fetched until you press, and no address you browse reaches a Foretaste server. |
| What it opens | Spreadsheets: “Microsoft Excel 2007 XML (.xlsx)”, “Microsoft Excel 97/2000/XP (.xls)”, “LibreOffice ODF spreadsheet (.ods)” and “Text and CSV (.csv and .txt)”. S1 | XLSX, XLS, ODS, CSV and TSV, and also Word, PowerPoint, OpenDocument text and slides, PDF, text and code, pictures, audio, video, archives, subtitles, fonts, databases, datasets, calendars and contacts. |
| Archives | None among the formats its listing names. S1 | ZIP, 7z, RAR, TAR and more. A remote ZIP is listed from its index over byte ranges, about 67 KB read of a 40 MB archive, and a spreadsheet inside it opens in the same tab. |
| Price | “It is available for free online users but it also allows the integration with premium users” S1 The sentence goes on: “and on-premises OffiDocs deployments where the OffiDocs LibreOffice Calc online is installed.” | Opening a spreadsheet, or any other format, is free and needs no account. Pro adds a workbook’s formulas, merged cells and more rows. |
| Last updated | 27 August 2024, on Chrome. S1 | October 2026 (version 1.6.0). |
02
Foretaste, reading a Word document
The real viewer, running on this page. Nothing is installed and nothing is uploaded: scroll it, press things.
The real Foretaste viewer reading sample.docx on a measured Letter page, running on this page.
Word document1.2 KBWords 30
- Tables
- 1
- Page
- Letter
- Type
- application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
The whole file was read - 1.2 KB.
How this was read
- Asked how big it is—
- Asked for the whole file1.2 KB
Processed locally · Foretaste reads files on your device and does not upload them.
External viewer · Google fetches the file themselves.
What the site said about this file
- Name
- sample.docx
- Kind
- Word document
- Reported type
- application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
- Size
- 1.2 KB
- Partial reads
- Supported. Foretaste can read part of the file without fetching all of it.
- Address
- http://localhost:8797/sample.docx
Reads the whole file to compare against a published checksum. Nothing is sent anywhere.
The questions people ask
Is Foretaste an alternative to XLS Editor?
For looking at a spreadsheet you found on the web, yes: both open it from the link. Foretaste reads the file inside your own browser tab, and opens many other kinds of file the same way.
Does XLS Editor send the addresses I browse to its servers?
Its listing says “The scanning is performed from our servers so your URL are reported to our system”, and that “No personal data is collected”. It also says the scan “can be disabled with a checkbox that appears in the extension popup”, after which, by its own account, the extension does very little. Foretaste decides whether a link is a file inside the page and sends no address to a Foretaste server.
Can Foretaste open a spreadsheet inside a ZIP?
Yes. A spreadsheet inside a ZIP, 7z, RAR or TAR opens in the same tab, and a remote ZIP is listed from its index over byte ranges: about 67 KB of a 40 MB archive. XLS Editor’s listing names no archive format.
Sources
Where each claim comes from
Read on 13 October 2026, and checked again by 13 April 2027. If a source has changed by then, this page changes with it.