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
Probably not. Are you able to post the file here? One question I didn't ask which might be pertinent - was the file originally sent by email? Sometimes, if you open an attachment before saving it, it will get corrupted.
You might be right, firefytr, but some people can't afford to buy a lot of software and I have some experience fixing Excel files so I thought I would take a shot at it if AppSupport wanted me to.
You're right, too, though - if they're going to be working with Excel files a lot, they might be better off going ahead and buying the software themselves.
It's like playing Russian Roulette. Most of the time you're going to be alright, but every once in a while, it's going to get ya. I've been running a help desk for 12 yrs, and I've seen it happen enough times to know that you're better off saving it first.
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?
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.
I've also had success when changing the extension then changing it back. Of course I think it really depends on what the actual source of the corruption is, which is pretty uncharted territory.
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.
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