How to Fix Excel File Corrupted And Cannot Be Opened

Amy Dennis

Dec 16, 2024 • Filed to: Recover Files • Proven solutions

Excel is a valuable tool for organizations, enabling the storage and analysis of large volumes of raw data through its electronic spreadsheets. With built-in functions for extensive data analysis, Excel is essential for groups managing significant amounts of information.

Overview of Excel file cannot open Error

Sometimes, you can get error messages when you work with excel files, such as ‘excel file cannot open’. This particular error message informs you that the excel file in question cannot be opened by the excel program on your computer. There are several possible causes for error messages like this:

• You may be using an older version of the Microsoft excel program, which can only open older excel files. The file extension presently used by excel programs is the XLSX extension. Excel files older than excel 2003 use the XLS extension. There may, therefore, be a problem if you try to open files with the XLSX extension in older versions of Microsoft excel.
• The excel file may have been corrupted by a virus.
• A bug check error may have occurred: this is due to an underlying defect in the hardware.
• There may have been a storage media failure resulting in the corruption of the excel file.
• A dynamic link library error: the dynamic link library is a file that is important for the proper functioning of some programs. If this file gets corrupted or missing, it could result in program malfunctioning and possible error messages.

In all of these cases, you may get an error message, and there will be a need to fix the excel cannot open error.

Part 1: Fix Excel File cannot open manually

There are some steps that you can take to fix an excel that cannot open an error message. You could attempt to fix the problem manually:

• Try to change the extension of your excel file. Go to Computer>>>Browse tools>>>Folder options>>>File types. There, you can change the extension of your excel file.
• You can attempt to use the open and repair option in your excel program. Open the excel program, then from the File menu click open. Select the folder you wish to repair. Click on the open drop-down, and choose open and repair.
• You could also change the extension of the file into a symbolic link format(SYLK). This will help you to retrieve your data from the corrupted spreadsheet. First, you open excel, then File>>>Save As>>>Save As Type>>>SYLK. Then click Save.
• You could attempt to use a macro to retrieve the information from the corrupt spreadsheet.

Part 2: Free Download Excel file Error Tool

If all these methods are not satisfactory, then you could use an excel repair tool to fix the excel cannot open file error. An excel repair tool is a software program, which can restore a corrupted excel spreadsheet to its original condition. A very excellent excel repair tool is the Repairit excel repair tool.

Microsoft Excel Repair Tool

• Recovers all kinds of data stored in damaged excel files such as tables, charts, formulas, comments, images, etc.
• Restore all of your corrupted excel files to their original standing.
• Preview the repaired excel file in real-time, see how much of the file has been recovered as it is being repaired.
• All kinds of MS office corruption errors (for XLS and XLSX files only) can be handled with this tool.
• This excel file repair tool can be used on both Windows and Mac platforms to repair corrupt excel file.
• All kinds of MS office corruption errors (for XLS and XLSX files only) can be handled with this tool.
• This excel file repair tool can repair damaged files of all versions from 2000 to 2016 that includes 2000, 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013, etc.

Download Windows Version Download Mac Version

 

Part 3: How to fix an excel cannot open File Error

parent company is repairit information technology private limited. When you download the installer, then you install the program with the following steps:

Step 1 With Excel file repair tool to search your corrupt Excel files from the local drive.

Step 2 Select all files to start to repair the process from the list of searched files.

Step 3 Preview the repaired Excel file after the selected files repaired successfully.

Step 4 Select a location to save the repaired Excel files.

Also, you can try this solution to repair excel cannot open the files because of the file format issues.

The Microsoft Excel program is an electronic spreadsheet used for storing and manipulating data. Errors such as the ‘cannot open file’ error can occur during its use and could be due to a wide variety of factors. Such errors may be manually repaired, or an excel repair tool may be used to fix the excel errors. A very excellent excel repair tool for fixing excel ‘cannot open file’ errors in the repairirt excel repair tool.