Viewing NFO files
In this tutorial you will learn how to view NFO files. Sometimes when you have downloaded headers from a Usenet newsgroup, you will notice that some posters start with a NFO file as the first file. In this NFO file is information about the posting. You can easily open this small file to see if the post is worthy of downloading. For example: think of the quality of MP3 files.
NFO is short for information. Without a real NFO viewer this extension is related to a piece of software in XML format from Microsoft, which is used for other purposes. You need a separate program to view NFO files, which is explained in this tutorial. You can use Notepad, although that doesn't always look very well.Download NFO Viewer (link opens in a new window)
In this tutorial I will explain the configuration and the use of NFO Viewer. It is a short tutorial because the program is very easy to use.
Configuration
After installing the program we click the button that says ‘Preferences’.
This is the preferences screen as you can see. There is nothing important to change here, maybe the colors etc, but I like them the way they are. Take a look at the listbox where you can choose the preferred language and do not forget to mark the program as standard NFO Viewer, if it isn't already.
Using NFO Viewer
You can test the viewer by clicking this link: < Pandora’s box NFO > Click ‘open’ to activate the viewer.
It will show you how for what purposes NFO files can be used:
- The author wants to show his skills by his NFO, like in this case 'Pandora's box'
- Someone who makes a set of binary files available gives in a NFO file detailed information for the downloader to use, such as the number of files or the quality.
How to make NFO files yourself is explained in the tutorial How to create NFO files.
