"Excel cannot open this file. The file might have been damaged or modified from it's original format

W

WintoMacEval

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Power PC

I have an xlsx file which opens fine in Windows Vista. But I get the error message when trying to open the file on Leopard using Excel 2008 for the Mac: "Excel cannot open this file. The file might have been damaged or modified from it's original format." The file is encrypted with a password. The error message appears after I enter the correct password. Please help.

Thanks.
 
S

sonicslaphead

I have an identical problem. I have multiple business models which were
created on a PC and using Office 2008 on OSX 10.5.8. I've been searching for
most of this week and can't see a solution anywhere.
 
X

XinXin

I have an identical problem. I have multiple business models which were
created on a PC and using Office 2008 on OSX 10.5.8. I've been searching for
most of this week and can't see a solution anywhere.

Most likely, these files are corrupted somehow. WinXL 2007 has a file recovery mechanism that helps recover data from corrupted files. Unfortunately, MacXL 2008 doesn't have such a parity functionality. MacXL SP2 introduced some prelimilary way of recovering corrupted files, but we can't recover all corrupted files.

Suggestions:
1) If you haven't upgraded to SP2, please do it. It will definitely help recover some of your corrupted files.
2) If option 1 doesn't work, please open the file and resave it with WinXL. The resulting file should now open fine with MacXL.

Thanks!

XinXin Liu
Macintosh Business Unit
Microsoft Corporation

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
J

John

Thanks XinXin Liu, I have just upgraded to snow leopard with a clean install
and I have resaved the files using the WinXP SP3 system we have and also
using Windows 7. I will let you know the results asap.

Best regards,

John
 
P

Paul Travis

As a former Microsoftie who's MIFFED that the groups can't maintain
cross-platform feature parity, I am even more frustrated that the file
corruption problems I've had in Mac Excel 08 ARE NOT resolved by reopening
with Win Excel 07.

Any OTHER suggestions? Or should I just dump my investment and start using
Numbers?

pt
 
J

John McGhie

Hi Paul:

They should be.

The original issue was a bug in Win Excel 2007. The XML I/O module had a
bug in it that was writing dud code to the disk.

Because Win Excel 2007 used the same module for read and write, the problem
was never noticed until other things started trying to read the code.

The issue is fixed in a combination of Service Packs, from Microsoft for
Windows Xp/Vista/7 and Office 2007, from Microsoft for Office 2008,a nd from
Apple for OS 10.5.x and 10.6.x

Everyone gets a piece of this action :) You need to make sure that the
latest service packs are applied at both ends.

"Re-opening" will not resolve it, as I am sure you are aware: you need to
"Save As" to write out a new file with the fixes in place.

The rest of the story is due to the fact that Microsoft Office 2008 is a
"lite" version that was rushed to market with a lot of bits missing.

Those bits are being replaced in Office for Mac 2010. So you will get a
much better experience in 2010.

In the meantime, people using Office professionally, are staying with
Office 2004.

As a former 'Softie, I am sure you're aware that nobody reading here has any
particular interest, one way or another, in whether or not you elect to use
some other software :)

I've never tried Numbers, I hear it does a good job for light-duty lists and
tables. You need to be able to live without macros, pivot tables, or
statistical analysis.

Cheers


As a former Microsoftie who's MIFFED that the groups can't maintain
cross-platform feature parity, I am even more frustrated that the file
corruption problems I've had in Mac Excel 08 ARE NOT resolved by reopening
with Win Excel 07.

Any OTHER suggestions? Or should I just dump my investment and start using
Numbers?

pt


--

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
 

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