File Format Not Valid

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Ceptor54 - 21 Jul 2006 10:13 GMT

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

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Special-K - 21 Jul 2006 10:42 GMT

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?

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Ceptor54 - 21 Jul 2006 11:06 GMT

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

> You sure it is an Excel file? Could they have saved it as CSV or text
> and renamed it?
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
> opening it in Excel the "File Format not valid" message appears.
> Maybe this is what they did?

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Dave Peterson - 21 Jul 2006 13:56 GMT

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.
>
[quoted text clipped - 25 lines]
> > Special-K's Profile: http://www.excelforum.com/member.php?action=getinfo&userid=7470
> > View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread.php?threadid=563616

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Dave Peterson

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