File Format Not Valid

[Guest]

HI,

I have a spreadsheet that is used on a daily basis by one user. It has been
in use for two or three months and is opened everyday, however when I
attempted to open it this morning I received the following message
"Sales.xls: File Format not Valid"

I've tried opening it in Open Office however I get a similar mesage. Anyone
got any ideas of how I would get this open. As can be expected the normal
user of the spreadsheet has not kept another copy of it.

Thanks in Advance DJ

 

[Special-K]

You sure it is an Excel file? Could they have saved it as CSV or text
and renamed it?
Might be worth opening it with a Hex editor and seeing if you can
identify the type of file.

Interesting section on this page

http://www.mrexcel.com/archive/Errors/27080.html

saying a user opened the file in Word, see half way down page.

Just did a test myself. Opened an excel file in Word an saved it. Got a
warning "This file will be saved in Word format" and sure enough when
opening it in Excel the "File Format not valid" message appears.
Maybe this is what they did?

 

[Guest]

Thanks used Hex Editor and seem to have figured it.

Double checked with the user and they 'might' have opened it with another
programme

DJ

 

[Dave Peterson]

MSWord can open excel files.

And if the user saves as an MSWord document (either by accident or on
purpose--or via autosave), then the file will become an MSWord document with a
..xls extension (not .doc).

You may be able to open the file in MSWord and see if there's anything you can
save--but don't get your hopes up, there usually isn't much to save.

Thanks used Hex Editor and seem to have figured it.

Double checked with the user and they 'might' have opened it with another
programme

DJ