Embodiments provided herein provide for customized previews of electronic documents. A template for a particular electronic document may be identified based on document attributes and/or usage parameters. The identified template may define pertinent data to be extracted from structured documents. Portions of documents, including unstructured documents can be provided as a preview such as by rendering an area of the document such as one defined in the template by coordinates or pixels. In this regard, individual users or user groups may configure what data is displayed in a document preview such as by selecting fields and/or by specifying locations of interest within the document. Users can view listings of documents and their respective previews such that the desired document may be identified without rendering complete documents.