Repair Corrupt Excel Files / Best Tool(s)

[ajones]

What tools have people had the most success with for repairing corrupt Excel files?

I have had 2 people come to me recently with corrupt Excel files (oolone was XLS and the other XLSX). I tried opening the files with versions of Excel and repair but nothing. I then tried using LibreOffice to open the file, but nothing.


Pay tools?

Any good free tools?

I have looked at
Excel Recovery Software to Repair damage xls, xlsx Files, Spreadsheets

Excel recovery ExcelFIX is an Excel data recovery and XLS repair

this product at Sourceforge looked interesting but it is full of Malware:
Corrupt XLSX Salvager | Free software downloads at SourceForge.net

something better?

thanks

Alan

 

[drew46cassidy]

If you are looking for a way to repair corrupt .xlsx file, you can try "Open and Repair" function of MS Excel. It is very simple and effective.


But if fails, you may try a third-party Excel Recovery software.

 

[alice198723]

When an Excel file is corrupted, then you can try several methods to recover it:

1. (Free Method). First of all, you can try to repair the file manually in Excel, as follows:

(1) On the File menu, click Open.
(2) In the Open dialog box, select the file you want to open, and click the arrow next to the Open button.
(3) Click Open and Repair, and then choose which method you want to use to recover your workbook.

You may find more information about this at:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ex...001034656.aspx (for Excel 2003)
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ex...017.aspx?CTT=1 (for Excel 2007)
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ex...840.aspx?CTT=1 (for Excel 2010)
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ex...554.aspx?CTT=1 (for Excel 2013)

2.(Free Method) If method 1 fails, there are still several methods to recover your Excel file manually with Excel, including writing a small VBA macro, as below

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ex...#_Toc337637262

3. (Free Method) Third, there are also free tools from third-parties that can open and read Microsoft Excel files, for example,

3.1 OpenOffice at Apache OpenOffice - The Free and Open Productivity Suite. This is a very famous open source project that is designed to support Office file formats, including Excel files. The software can run under Windows.

3.2 KingSoft Spreadsheets at Free Excel Alternative software download - highly compatible with Excel. This is a free Windows tool that can open Excel files.

3.3 Google Drive at https://drive.google.com/ also support to load Excel files.

Sometimes when Excel fails to open your file, these tools may be able to open it successfully. If that is the case, then after the Excel file is opened, you can just save it as a new file which will be error-free.


Good luck!