reading .xlsx in Excel 2002

[jbclem]

I have Office 2002 for XP sp3, working fine in Windows 2000 sp4. I needed to read an .xlsx file with it so, following the instructions, I downloaded and installed the FileFormatConverters.exe . It shows up in Add/Remove Programs, so I know it's installed.

But there are no instructions as to how to use it, and when I try to open the .xlsx file I get the error message that the file is not in a recognizable format.

Could someone help me figure out how to make this work, or point me to some instructions and troubleshooting information.

Thanks...

 

[Damon Ostrander]

Hi jbclem,

I haven't used this program, but since it is installed it should show up in the program list you get when you click Start > All Programs, probably at the end of the list. Run the program. I suspect it will prompt you for the input it needs (it will probably open a file browse window to allow you to select your .xlsx file).

Damon

 

[Burrgogi]

Hi jbclem,

I haven't used this program, but since it is installed it should show up in the program list you get when you click Start > All Programs, probably at the end of the list. Run the program. I suspect it will prompt you for the input it needs (it will probably open a file browse window to allow you to select your .xlsx file).

Damon

I'm not sure it works like that. The office compatibility pack, once installed, will let the user open, view & edit documents in 2007 native format using 2003 or some other earlier version. It will show up in the 'Add/Remove' applet in the control panel yes -- but it's not something that the user would initiate as a separate program.

OP - I would uninstall it if I were you. Reboot your computer and try to re-install it.

 

[martindwilson]

exactly/it runs as soon as you try to open an xlsx a window should pop up saying file conversion in progress. it may be the file itself they dont all like to open try another one,,failing that open it in google docs or open office

 

[jbclem]

Double clicking on the .xlsx file, just like trying to open it in Excel 2002 sp3, fails. When I double click on it, it just opens up in WordPad as gibberish. I've tried uninstalling, re-installing, downloading again, etc...nothing helps. I started to download OpenOffice but when I saw that it was 151mb, I lost interest in that.

Finally, I uploaded it to Zamzar.com and within 3 minutes received the converted file back.

But I still need to fix this problem, so if anyone has any more troubleshooting ideas please pass them on.

For instance, does anyone know where the fileformatconverters.exe is installed? If I could find it, I could try to run it from there...(so far I haven't seen the converter start up anywhere)

 

[Damon Ostrander]

Hi again jbclem,

Did you ever try opening it from the File > Open menu within Excel? It could be that you simply don't have the .xlsx extension defined to open with Excel in your file browser, so it won't open in Excel via a double click. If this is the case you can go to Tools > Folder options in your File Browser, then to the File Types tab and set Excel as the application to associate with .xlsx and .xlsm files.

Damon

 

[jbclem]

Opening the .xlsx file in Excel (File>Open) only produces the wrong result. But I did go into My Computer/Tools/Options to check the file type association and when I selected .xlsx, it showed that the XLSX extension opens with "Microsoft Open XML Converter". I don't know if that is the converter I just installed, or one that was already there. However, I tried opening the .xlsx file in question again by double clicking on it and after a 20 second delay, got the error message SAVE AS "the converter failed to save the file".

Looking in Add/Remove Programs, I can't find a Microsoft Open XML Converter, and the entry for Compatibility Pack for the 2007 Office system indicates that it was last used a few days ago...so obviously it isn't being invoked when I try to open this .xlsx file.

Which takes me back to my previous message...where is this Compatibility Pack located, and how can I start it up manually? And what is this Microsoft Open XML Converter?

 

[Andrew Poulsom]

Are you up to date with all the service packs?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924074