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I am at work and having problems opening an excel file. I continue to get the error:

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

After many searches I noticed that many have had this same problem. I am on a work computer that is connected to a server. I am unable to get onto the server computer and I'm not sure of our network set-up. This information cannot be revealed to me.

This is (one of) my conundrum: I cannot change the file extension. I managed to move it into a Zip folder, but that has not helped. I attempted to upload the file to my Google account, hoping the Google Gods will magically fix it, no avail. I cannot download a program to fix the corruption as I am not authorized to download anything.

I am almost positive that we are running on Windows XP, I know our Microsoft Office is version 2010.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

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"I cannot change the file extension." Why not? You're able to move it into a zip folder and upload the file, it would seem that you should be able to also change the extension (at least on a copy of the file). – Conrad Frix Feb 1 '12 at 17:54

3 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted

I suspect, the file is not an excel file. This can be some other extension file, which has been changed to .xlsx format.

EDIT:

This is bit difficult to say, what is the actual file format?

But below is sample test i have run on my machine.

Scenario:

I have my PDF file, just I have changed extension to .xlsx.

Now I tried to open the file that assuming it is an excel file then I will get the same error.

So just try your file by changing extension to .pdf.

enter image description here

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Please explain how Molly can check whether this is the case. – Daniel Beck♦ Feb 1 '12 at 17:28
@DanielBeck: I have updated the answer with more details – Siva Charan Feb 1 '12 at 17:41
I would agree with that if he didn't do all of his work in Excel. I attempted to open it with Notepad and Word. No avail. My other issue is I am unable to change the file extension. – Molly Feb 1 '12 at 17:42
@molly what happened when you tried to open your file in notepad? if I am not mistaken notepad still SHOULD be able to open it...but it will be garbly goop. but it you get the same message...I do believe somthing is wonky with the file itself – mjrider Feb 1 '12 at 17:45
@SivaCharan Office Open XML formats are file collections bundled in a zip file. So the proper solution is to rename to .zip and see whether it can be extracted. – Daniel Beck♦ Feb 1 '12 at 17:46
up vote 3 down vote

See if you have the Compatibility Pack for the 2007 Office System installed on the troubled machines. If you are running Office 2010, you no longer need this and I believe it causes this problem in SharePoint 2010.

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up vote 0 down vote

have you tried opening this file on a different machine / os? currently cant tell if it is your machine or a issue with the file itself. first step would be to figure out if your FILE is valid. I dont know an easy way to confirm it is valed other than opening it.

first thing that can help a lot with trouble shooting issues is to visit http://supportdetails.com/ and then you can tell us a few more details.

next thing I would do is to download Libre office (which is a fork of openoffice but ... more open (long story)) then I would try and open your file with there version of excel to see if you can open it there.

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I have attempted it on three machines, including mine. I do not have access to another machine not on this server. I do not have the ability to download anything. It's a paranoid rule, not set by me. – Molly Feb 1 '12 at 17:44
alright. that MAY make things a bit trickyer. – mjrider Feb 1 '12 at 17:45
uhhhh...do you have backups you can restore a working copy from? – mjrider Feb 1 '12 at 17:46

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