Unable to open Excel file with Excel or OpenOffice

[Ron S]

Good morning everyone,

I am hoping that someone can give me a hand. Recently I downloaded a
file that is work related, when I attempt to open this file with the
Microsoft 2003 Excel viewer I receive the following error: "Microsoft
Excel viewer cannot open files of this type". When I attempt to open
the same file with Microsoft 2007 Excel viewer I receive two errors,
the first says that the viewer can not find the file the I am trying
to open, the second error is the same as Microsoft 2003 viewer.

I have also tried opening the file with OpenOffice 2.4 and all that I
get is a text import screen with several options available -- no
matter which option I choose I get a spreadsheet with 54,000 lines of
code.

Does anyone have ideas?

Thanks in advance...

Ron

 

[Ron S]

Update...

If it helps, I tried downloading an excel template from Microsoft and
was able to open it with both excel and Open Office. Could it be that
the file that I am attempting open if corrupt?

 

[ShaneDevenshire]

Hi Ron,

It sounds like the file is corrupt or not really the filetype it appears to
be. Test this by creating a small Excel file and try opening it using both
viewers. If it works but your's doesn't it suggests there is a problem with
your file. Can you open your file in Excel 2003 or 2007 programs, not
viewers? What is the files extension?

 

[Bruce Sinclair]

Hi Ron,

It sounds like the file is corrupt or not really the filetype it appears to
be. Test this by creating a small Excel file and try opening it using both
viewers. If it works but your's doesn't it suggests there is a problem with
your file. Can you open your file in Excel 2003 or 2007 programs, not
viewers? What is the files extension?

Yes, be aware that XL thinks that anything called <something>.xls (or xlsx
for 2007 IIRC ?) is an XL file. As we know, this is not always the case.
It might not be an xl file at all.