Tech Support Guy banner
Status
Not open for further replies.

"Unable to read file" when attempting to open .xls

22K views 20 replies 6 participants last post by  RootbeaR 
#1 ·
When I try to open a particular excel file, I get the message "Unable to read file"
I am able to open any other .xls that I try to, but not this one.

using Excel 2003 Office Professional Edition

note - there is not a 'recovered doc' to work with. When I saved and closed it last, there was not any apparent problem.
I have tried 'open and recover'
I have tried saving as a new file
I have tried changing the name
I have tried emailing to someone else to open, but Outlook will not let me send it

Any help is greatly appreciated

thanks in advance
AppSupport
 
#15 ·
WyldStallyyn said:
was the file originally sent by email? Sometimes, if you open an attachment before saving it, it will get corrupted.
Oh really! I did not aware of this fact. I have always opened the files in attachment and they never get corrupted. Interesting.
 
#18 ·
Looks like he got it open. I had a thought while reading this though. I f I were to save a spreadsheet, accidentally, as a .dbm or something other than .xls or another common excel extension, would excel still be able to open it?
 
#19 ·
Are you saving it from inside Excel, or opening it inside another application and saving it under a different extension that way? Usually the program will warn you that you are changing the extension and that that might cause problems, but if it supports the format, and dbm does, then you won't have any problems.

I just did a test run, saving it in Excel with a dbm extension, and it worked fine.

Of course, if you save it in - say text format, then you're going to lose the formatting, but even that will import back into Excel without too much trouble.
 
#21 ·
WyldStallyyn said:
Are you saving it from inside Excel, or opening it inside another application and saving it under a different extension that way? Usually the program will warn you that you are changing the extension and that that might cause problems, but if it supports the format, and dbm does, then you won't have any problems.

I just did a test run, saving it in Excel with a dbm extension, and it worked fine.

Of course, if you save it in - say text format, then you're going to lose the formatting, but even that will import back into Excel without too much trouble.
Great. Thanks. I was just curious.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
Top