How do I open my excel workbook?

I have an excel workbook I use for important bank information. I last used
it yesterday. It is password-protected and I have had no previous problems.
Today, when I tried to open it I received a message: cannot read file! I
can't open my workbook and it will be costly to recreate the information.
Does anyone have a suggestion for opening my file?
--
ajojoel

Are you trying to open from a floppy or CD?

Copy it to your hard drive first.

Did you perhaps open it in Word and save?

Word would have saved it Word format. If that's the case, open it in Word and
try to copy whatever you can to a new Excel workbook.


Gord Dibben Excel MVP

On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 10:31:02 -0700, "ajojoel" <[email protected]> wrote:

>I have an excel workbook I use for important bank information. I last used
>it yesterday. It is password-protected and I have had no previous problems.
>Today, when I tried to open it I received a message: cannot read file! I
>can't open my workbook and it will be costly to recreate the information.
>Does anyone have a suggestion for opening my file?

On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 10:31:02 -0700, "ajojoel" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >I have an excel workbook I use for important bank information. I last used
> >it yesterday. It is password-protected and I have had no previous problems.
> >Today, when I tried to open it I received a message: cannot read file! I
> >can't open my workbook and it will be costly to recreate the information.
> >Does anyone have a suggestion for opening my file?
>
> My excel workbook is saved to my hard drive. Although it is
password-protected, I have never had any trouble opening it. I have never
saved it to Word and I am not trying to open it with Word. When I type in
my password and click on open, I get a dialog box that states: "Unable to
read File." This is most perplexing. Has my file been corrupted? I even
restored my computer (Windows XP professional) to the data prior to my most
recent opening of the file (April 18). I thought that maybe restoring to an
earlier date would allow me to open the workbook. No luck! I still cannot
open it.

Do you have any suggestions? If yes, I would appreciate anything.

Thanks - Joel
[email protected]




"Gord Dibben" wrote:

> Are you trying to open from a floppy or CD?
>
> Copy it to your hard drive first.
>
> Did you perhaps open it in Word and save?
>
> Word would have saved it Word format. If that's the case, open it in Word and
> try to copy whatever you can to a new Excel workbook.
>
>
> Gord Dibben Excel MVP
>
>

Maybe a newer version of excel can open it. xl2002+ have a reputation of
opening files that earlier versions couldn't (in fact, if you have multiple
versions of excel available, you may want to try opening it in all of them--you
never know).

You may want to try openoffice. Lots of people have said that it's recovered
workbooks that excel couldn't.

(http://www.openoffice.org, a 60-65 meg download or a CD)

If the file is really important, there are commercial recovery services. I've
never used it, but you might want to check into:
http://www.officerecovery.com

ajojoel wrote:
>
> On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 10:31:02 -0700, "ajojoel" <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > >I have an excel workbook I use for important bank information. I last used
> > >it yesterday. It is password-protected and I have had no previous problems.
> > >Today, when I tried to open it I received a message: cannot read file! I
> > >can't open my workbook and it will be costly to recreate the information.
> > >Does anyone have a suggestion for opening my file?
> >
> > My excel workbook is saved to my hard drive. Although it is
> password-protected, I have never had any trouble opening it. I have never
> saved it to Word and I am not trying to open it with Word. When I type in
> my password and click on open, I get a dialog box that states: "Unable to
> read File." This is most perplexing. Has my file been corrupted? I even
> restored my computer (Windows XP professional) to the data prior to my most
> recent opening of the file (April 18). I thought that maybe restoring to an
> earlier date would allow me to open the workbook. No luck! I still cannot
> open it.
>
> Do you have any suggestions? If yes, I would appreciate anything.
>
> Thanks - Joel
> [email protected]
>
> "Gord Dibben" wrote:
>
> > Are you trying to open from a floppy or CD?
> >
> > Copy it to your hard drive first.
> >
> > Did you perhaps open it in Word and save?
> >
> > Word would have saved it Word format. If that's the case, open it in Word and
> > try to copy whatever you can to a new Excel workbook.
> >
> >
> > Gord Dibben Excel MVP
> >
> >

--

Dave Peterson

I have not much for other suggestions.

Perhaps the file became corrupt somehow.

Make a copy of it for now and open that copy with Word to see if you can
collect any data from it.

BTW, Windows System Restore does not restore any data files so that avenue is
moot.

Any chance you have a backup squirreled away some place? With it being
important bank information, I would assume so.

Sent to a co-worker or somesuch?


Gord

On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 12:15:06 -0700, "ajojoel" <[email protected]> wrote:

>On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 10:31:02 -0700, "ajojoel" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> >I have an excel workbook I use for important bank information. I last used
>> >it yesterday. It is password-protected and I have had no previous problems.
>> >Today, when I tried to open it I received a message: cannot read file! I
>> >can't open my workbook and it will be costly to recreate the information.
>> >Does anyone have a suggestion for opening my file?
>>
>> My excel workbook is saved to my hard drive. Although it is
>password-protected, I have never had any trouble opening it. I have never
>saved it to Word and I am not trying to open it with Word. When I type in
>my password and click on open, I get a dialog box that states: "Unable to
>read File." This is most perplexing. Has my file been corrupted? I even
>restored my computer (Windows XP professional) to the data prior to my most
>recent opening of the file (April 18). I thought that maybe restoring to an
>earlier date would allow me to open the workbook. No luck! I still cannot
>open it.
>
>Do you have any suggestions? If yes, I would appreciate anything.
>
>Thanks - Joel
>[email protected]
>
>
>
>
>"Gord Dibben" wrote:
>
>> Are you trying to open from a floppy or CD?
>>
>> Copy it to your hard drive first.
>>
>> Did you perhaps open it in Word and save?
>>
>> Word would have saved it Word format. If that's the case, open it in Word and
>> try to copy whatever you can to a new Excel workbook.
>>
>>
>> Gord Dibben Excel MVP
>>
>>

I followed your suggestion and used openoffice. With it, I was able to open
the excel workbook; however, some of the worksheets were missing. There was
nothing there. I do consider this use successful since I was able to recover
quite a bit of my workbook. I have downloaded a demo of the recovery program
and will be trying to see if it works in recovering corrupted worksheets. I
will let you know if its ultimate success.

Thanks for your help - Joel ([email protected])


"Dave Peterson" wrote:

> Maybe a newer version of excel can open it. xl2002+ have a reputation of
> opening files that earlier versions couldn't (in fact, if you have multiple
> versions of excel available, you may want to try opening it in all of them--you
> never know).
>
> You may want to try openoffice. Lots of people have said that it's recovered
> workbooks that excel couldn't.
>
> (http://www.openoffice.org, a 60-65 meg download or a CD)
>
> If the file is really important, there are commercial recovery services. I've
> never used it, but you might want to check into:
> http://www.officerecovery.com
>
> ajojoel wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 10:31:02 -0700, "ajojoel" <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >
> > > >I have an excel workbook I use for important bank information. I last used
> > > >it yesterday. It is password-protected and I have had no previous problems.
> > > >Today, when I tried to open it I received a message: cannot read file! I
> > > >can't open my workbook and it will be costly to recreate the information.
> > > >Does anyone have a suggestion for opening my file?
> > >
> > > My excel workbook is saved to my hard drive. Although it is
> > password-protected, I have never had any trouble opening it. I have never
> > saved it to Word and I am not trying to open it with Word. When I type in
> > my password and click on open, I get a dialog box that states: "Unable to
> > read File." This is most perplexing. Has my file been corrupted? I even
> > restored my computer (Windows XP professional) to the data prior to my most
> > recent opening of the file (April 18). I thought that maybe restoring to an
> > earlier date would allow me to open the workbook. No luck! I still cannot
> > open it.
> >
> > Do you have any suggestions? If yes, I would appreciate anything.
> >
> > Thanks - Joel
> > [email protected]
> >
> > "Gord Dibben" wrote:
> >
> > > Are you trying to open from a floppy or CD?
> > >
> > > Copy it to your hard drive first.
> > >
> > > Did you perhaps open it in Word and save?
> > >
> > > Word would have saved it Word format. If that's the case, open it in Word and
> > > try to copy whatever you can to a new Excel workbook.
> > >
> > >
> > > Gord Dibben Excel MVP
> > >
> > >
>
> --
>
> Dave Peterson
>