How to Recover Corrupted Excel File?
Friday, November 28th, 2008
When you an try to open a Microsoft Office Excel file, you get an error message that sounds like:
The file you are trying to open, 'XXX.xls', is in a different format than specified by the file extension. Verify that the file is not corrupted and is from a trusted source before opening the file. Do you want to open the file?
Most of the time, when you get that message, your Excel file is corrupted. Here's a way to get data from your corrupted file.
- In office 2007, click on the round office button, then 'Open' (in older versions, go to File > Open).
- Select the problematic Excel file. Then, click on the small triangle on the right of the 'Open' button.
- Click on 'Select and Repair...'.
- Then, 'Extract Data'.
- Try both 'Convert to Values' and 'Recover Formulas' ('Convert to Values' works for me).
The small menu at Open button if you can't find it:
Of course, you are going to lose some formatting or data, but at least you still have something.
Hope this helps.
