excel cannot open the file xxx.xlsx' because the file format is not valid error

Question

I have difficulty open opening word and excel files suddenly. Only particular office file give me the problem. These files were previously scanned by combo fix and I believe they were damaged. The error response that I from office is

Excel cannot open the file xxx.xlsx because the file format is not valid. Verify that the file has not been corrupted and that the file extension matches the format of the file.

This is for excel and a similar kind of error response comes for word.

The file looks fine. I mean the size vise...

Please help me with this problem. I really appreciate your help and time....

Answer 1

This is not a solution but a possible work around to see/salvage the contents of your file. If you have a Google Account

• Go to Google Docs (https://docs.google.com)
• Log in with your credentials
• Upload the troublesome files (xlsx, docx etc)

If you are lucky Google may be able to salvage their contents.

Once uploaded, you can always download the file from Google in a variety of formats