Can't open a downloaded XLS file in Excel, but I can in Excel for the web - what am I doing wrong?!

[chandelirious]

Hi everyone,

I wonder if you can help me with a peculiar problem that is troubling me.

I am using Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise, Excel Version 2208.

I have a spreadsheet that I download from a website - it's a course attendance register, so unfortunately I can't upload a copy of it, as it is full of personal data. But it basically incorporates a person's name, location, email address, course that they are attending, etc.

It can either be downloaded as a PDF, or an Excel file. Naturally, I choose the Excel file.

It downloads as an XLS file.

But when I try to open in, I get the following message:

"Excel cannot open the file "PATH and NAME" because the file format or file extension is not valid. Verify that the file has not been corrupted and that the file extension matches the format of the file."

I've tried:
Open Read-Only
Open as Copy
Open in Protected View
Open and Repair...

None of those options work.

When I use Excel online, it opens. I get a message in a yellow bar that reads "FILE IN VIEWING MODE We've temporarily converted this file to a format that Excel can read. Learn more." The help file that comes up says "A file is in a different format than its extension indicates in Excel." I've read through that documentation, and tried changing the extension of the file to XLSX, XLSM, XLSB, but every one brings up the same error message.

Interestingly, though, I can see the content of the file, and I can use Excel online to convert it (I haven't tried it yet), but I have 30+ files to go through, and would rather do them as a batch.

I have tried uploading the files to Google Drive - Google Sheets doesn't open them either, but another app does, but that involves more clicks and more time!

Any ideas what I need to do to open these files in 'normal' Excel quickly?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Joe4]

Hi everyone,

I wonder if you can help me with a peculiar problem that is troubling me.

I am using Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise, Excel Version 2208.

I have a spreadsheet that I download from a website - it's a course attendance register, so unfortunately I can't upload a copy of it, as it is full of personal data. But it basically incorporates a person's name, location, email address, course that they are attending, etc.

It can either be downloaded as a PDF, or an Excel file. Naturally, I choose the Excel file.

It downloads as an XLS file.

But when I try to open in, I get the following message:

"Excel cannot open the file "PATH and NAME" because the file format or file extension is not valid. Verify that the file has not been corrupted and that the file extension matches the format of the file."

I've tried:
Open Read-Only
Open as Copy
Open in Protected View
Open and Repair...

None of those options work.

When I use Excel online, it opens. I get a message in a yellow bar that reads "FILE IN VIEWING MODE We've temporarily converted this file to a format that Excel can read. Learn more." The help file that comes up says "A file is in a different format than its extension indicates in Excel." I've read through that documentation, and tried changing the extension of the file to XLSX, XLSM, XLSB, but every one brings up the same error message.

Interestingly, though, I can see the content of the file, and I can use Excel online to convert it (I haven't tried it yet), but I have 30+ files to go through, and would rather do them as a batch.

I have tried uploading the files to Google Drive - Google Sheets doesn't open them either, but another app does, but that involves more clicks and more time!

Any ideas what I need to do to open these files in 'normal' Excel quickly?

Thanks in advance!

Are you sure that it is really exporting as a valid Excel file?
I have sometimes seen programs export things to CSV files (or other Text files) and call them Excel files.

One way to check it so rename the file with a "TXT" extension, and try opening it in a Text Editor program like NotePad.
If it looks like a normal data file without any special characters, then it is a Text file of some sort, and you should be able to open it Excel using the TXT or CSV extension.

If that still does not work, I would recommend reaching out to the owner of the Web site and relaying your concerns to them. There may be an error in how they are creating the file, that it is not rendering a valid Excel file.

 

[chandelirious]

Thanks for that.

My gut feeling is that the website isn't creating the file correctly. When changing the extension to CSV, it does open in Excel, but all of the data is in cell A1.

I found a magic way of opening it in Notepad, inserting a comma in a specific place, saving it as an XLS again, and then it would open and I could extract from it what I wanted - but again, it was convoluted.

I may just have to live with using Excel for the Web...

 

[Joe4]

It sounds like it is a different kind of Text file. If we know what kind it is, we may be able to open/parse it in Excel without having to mess with it in NotePad.
How exactly is the data structured in NotePad? Does it appear be space delimited (fixed width) or tab delimited?

Note that if you open it in Excel, and everything is in column A, you may be able to use Text to Columns to parse the data into different columns.