Excel cannot open the file 'file.xlsx' because the file format

Every now and then, when I try opening an Excel file, I get a message saying that "Excel cannot open the file 'file.xlsx' because the file format or the file extension is not valid. Verify that the file has not been corrupted and that the file extension
matches the format of the file.

Hi,
Which Excel version are you using? As far as I know, this issue is caused by malware on the affected machine.There are now two known variants of malware which causes this problem: Win32/Crilock.A and
Win32/Buma!rts. They have both been identified as a new family of ransomware.
We'd better clean your machine, run Microsoft Safety Scanner (http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx).
For more detail information, please refer to the following link:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/the_microsoft_excel_support_team_blog/archive/2013/09/07/quot-cannot-open-the-file-because-the-file-format-or-extension-is-invalid-quot-opening-office-files.aspx
Regards,
George Zhao
TechNet Community Support
It's recommended to download and install
Configuration Analyzer Tool (OffCAT), which is developed by Microsoft Support teams. Once the tool is installed, you can run it at any time to scan for hundreds of known issues in Office
programs.

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Excel cannot open the file

I am trying to build a dashboard in 4.5 Professional. When I open the Xcelsius file I get the following message "Excel cannot open the file 'im5.xlsx' because the file format or file extention is not valid. Verify that the file has not been corrupted and that the file extention matches the format of the file"
I went to Task Master killed Excel and then got a new message "the document 'im5.xlsx' caused a serious error the last time it was open. Would you like to continue opening it?" If I say "Yes" the message in the first paragraph re-appears. However, I then cannot find Excel in Task Manager again. I therefore assume Excel is not running but the problem persist, I cannot openthe Dashboard. Any ideas how to solve this problem?
I run XP and Office 2007. I have build many Dashboards on 4.5 and also run Engage 2008.
Niel

Hi Niel
Can you save the Excel file as 2003 compatible and try again?
Regards
Charles

I get a message saying that "Excel cannot open the file

Every now and then, when I try opening an Excel file, I get a message saying that "Excel cannot open the file 'file.xlsx' because the file format or the file extension is not valid. Verify that the file has not been corrupted and that the file extension
matches the format of the file.

I see this most often when a file has been transferred around a lot and gets corrupted due to bad sectors on hard drives,
bad thumb drives, etc...
Occasionally, I find a repair utility that will....kind of....fix it. You tend to lose all formatting and usually the user
would have to spend more time doing than life than simply starting from scratch. If on a file server, shadow copies
(previous versions) are a god send.
If it happens completely randomly, does it happen more often to the same group of people? Perhaps an update malfunctioned?
Reinstall Office? Try XLSX Open File Tool for recovery your documents (http://www.xlsx.openfiletool.com/)
There could be so many reasons this could happen, but all the above is where I'd start.
Also read this
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/xlsx-viewer-download/Yf8eudHMWv8

Excel cannot open the file beacuse the file format or file extension is not valid. Verify that the file has not been corrupted and that the file extension matches the format of the file [help]

Hi,
I have a excel file that I have been using since beginning of year.
Yesterday, I tried to open it but a message comes out "
Excel cannot open the file beacuse the file format or file extension is not valid. Verify that the file has not been corrupted and that the file extension matches the format of the file"
After I click yes, the page is blank. The file is about 400kb in size.
I have try open and repair and third party repair program and not working also.
I would appreciate a lot if you can help me.
Thank you very much.

Per your post, this problem might be caused by malware on the affected machine.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/the_microsoft_excel_support_team_blog/archive/2013/09/07/quot-cannot-open-the-file-because-the-file-format-or-extension-is-invalid-quot-opening-office-files.aspx
In order to clean your machine, run Microsoft Safety Scanner (http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx) to kill the malware, and then repair Excel file itself.
If this is not the case, feel free to post back and let me know. Thanks.
Tony Chen
TechNet Community Support
We
are trying to better understand customer views on social support experience, so your participation in this
interview project would be greatly appreciated if you have time.
Thanks for helping make community forums a great place.

Excel cannot open the new form. The Form contains schema validation errors.

i am running the approval workflow on a document library, while trying to open Excel
file i get the error.
Excel cannot open the new form. The Form contains schema validation errors.
Detailed error:
Element '{http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/infopath/2009/WSSList/dataFields}Body' is
unexpected according to content model of parent element '{http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/infopath/2009/WSSList/dataFields}SharePointListItem_RW'.<o:p></o:p>
Expecting: {http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/infopath/2009/WSSList/dataFields}WorkflowLink,
{http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/inf....
neeraj

Hi,
According to your description, my understanding is that when you are running approval workflow and opening the Excel file, then it will occur the error above.
For a better troubleshooting, I suggest you can try to create a new normal excel file and then run the workflow and open the file to test if it works. It will help to figure out if this is the file itself issue or the SharePoint issue.
Also, please provide some more detailed information such as screen capture, it will easier to find the root cause of the issue.
Thanks
Best Regards
TechNet Community Support
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help, and unmark the answers if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact
[email protected]

Excel cannot open the file because the file format or file extension is not valid

pls help

Hi,
In regarding of the issue, please provide us more information to assist you better.
Which Office version are you using? Office 2013 or other.
Did the issue occur with the special file or every file?
Then, based on your error message, this problem has been confirmed to be caused by malware on the affected machine. There are now two known variants of malware which causes this problem: Win32/Crilock.A and
Win32/Buma!rts. They have both been identified as a new family of ransomware.
In order to clean your machine, run Microsoft Safety Scanner (http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx). If infected, Safety Scanner should clean the virus from
the system, however it will not repair corrupted files. You will still need to restore those from a backup. A detailed analysis of affected files submitted to Microsoft for investigation has revealed the files are encrypted with a private
and public key. The files cannot be recovered without the private key, which is more than likely held by the attacker. The premise of ransomware is such that if a person pays the ransom the key is provided to "unlock" the files.
For more detail information, please refer to the following link:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/the_microsoft_excel_support_team_blog/archive/2013/09/07/quot-cannot-open-the-file-because-the-file-format-or-extension-is-invalid-quot-opening-office-files.aspx
Regards,
George Zhao
TechNet Community Support
It's recommended to download and install
Configuration Analyzer Tool (OffCAT), which is developed by Microsoft Support teams. Once the tool is installed, you can run it at any time to scan for hundreds of known issues in
Office programs.

After file encryption in Windows 7, Excel cannot open .xlsx file

I just moved all my files to a new laptop with Windows 7. I was using Excel 2007 and Windows XP on the OLD laptop. The NEW laptop has Windows 7 Ultimate and Excel 2010. I turned on file encryption (via Windows File Explorer) and now I'm
unable to open most Excel files.
The error message says: "Excel cannot open the file 'ABC.xlsx' because the file format or file extension is not valid. Verify that the file has not been corrupted and that the file extension matches the format of the file."
I can open the file just fine if I use the backup version from the old laptop. It appears that the Windows 7 file encryption damaged the file from Excel's perspective. No other applications are showing issues and not all .xlsx files are failing.
Any ideas, please?
Thanks,
Ken

This is not a solution but a possible work around to see/salvage the contents of your file. If you have a Google Account
Go to Google Docs (https://docs.google.com)
Log in with your credentials
Upload the troublesome files (xlsx, docx etc)
If you are lucky Google may be able to salvage their contents.
Once uploaded, you can always download the file from Google in a variety of formats

I downloaded mountain lion and then the new office suite (word, ppt, excel) but now when I try to display one of my ppt's it says 'ppt cannot open the file...the file may be corrupt, in use, not a type recognized by ppt etc.." how can I fix it?? HELP

I downloaded mountain lion and then the new office suite (word, ppt, excel) but now when I try to display one of my ppt's it says 'ppt cannot open the file...the file may be corrupt, in use, not a type recognized by ppt etc.." how can I fix it?? HELP

Did you try to open teh fle by double-clicking its icon? If the file was made with an older version of Office, you may get that message. Try opeing PP and, from its "File" menu, see if you can open the ppt. I've foundthat often gets around that message and then yo ucan save the file from the newer version.
If that doesn't work, consider asking in the Microsoft Office: Mac forums here:
Office for Mac forums
PowerPoint is not an Apple product and it seems a lot of people around here avoid Office.

Cannot open the file because the open options are incorrect

I'm trying to iterate through a folder of images, open each one of them, duplicate them into another photoshop file and close the individual image. This code works great on a PC (Photoshop CS3), but when I run it on our macs (Photoshop CS3) I will receive the following error on random images. "Error: Cannot open the file because the open options are incorrect" Does anyone know how to solve this problem? I've read about possibly setting the OpenDocumentType but have not seen an example anywhere. This error will sometimes occur after loading in one image or sometimes after 20 images. Sometimes I run it on the same directory multiple times all with various points of error. Sometimes every images is loaded. Any help would be much appreciated. Sample code is below.
i //CODE BELOW
i //allows the user to select an folder full of images
b var inputFolder = Folder.selectDialog("Select a folder that contains the files you want added as layers.");
b var fileList = inputFolder.getFiles();
b var tempRef = app.open(tempName);
b for (var i = 0; i < fileList.length; i++)
b {
b var tempName = fileList[i];
b var tempStringName = fileList[i].toString();
i //used to check if the file in the directory does in fact contain the .png extension
b var reducedFileName = tempStringName.substring(tempStringName.lastIndexOf("/")+1);
b if(reducedFileName.substring((reducedFileName.length - 4),(reducedFileName.length)) != ".png" || reducedFileName.substring((reducedFileName.length - 4),(reducedFileName.length)) != ".PNG")
b {
i //setting reference to opened docuement PNG file
i //This seems to be the section throwing the error. Surrounding with Try Catch revealse the Error noted above
b var tempRef = app.open(tempName);
i //setting a tempName variable to the PNG file name
b var tempName = app.activeDocument.name;
i //setting reference to the active layer in the file
b var graphicLayer = app.activeDocument.activeLayer;
i //setting the PNG layer name to the PNG file
b tempRef.layers[0].name = tempName;
i //duplicating the image onto the opened Photoshop file
b tempRef.layers[0].duplicate(backRef);
i //closing the original PNG file without saving
b tempRef.close(SaveOptions.DONOTSAVECHANGES);
b }
b }

It looks as if the folder contains non Photoshop files, one way around the problem would be to change
var fileList = inputFolder.getFiles();
To specify the file types you want to process IE:
var fileList = inputFolder.getFiles(/\.(jpg|tif|psd|crw|cr2|nef|dcr|dc2|raw)$/i);

I have LR 4 and now I cannot open the software because I get this warning: light room cannot start because it cannot create files in the temp file location.. C:/windows/temp. How do I fix this? I have removed and downloaded LR and even used by disc and st

I have LR 4 and now I cannot open the software because I get this warning: "light room cannot start because it cannot create files in the temp file location. C:\windows\temp\". I think I need to have LR open in a different place but I have no idea how to do that. Any help is most appreciated.
Alex

Jim
Thank you for your prompt reply. Unfortunately I am not that tech oriented and
cannot easily find that folder. I did notice when I was booting up the LR software
that I could accept the site where LR usually is set up or choose a place. I am
thinking that the standard location for LR software is corrupted and that if I
chose a different place it would work. I say this because whether I use my
original disc or download from adobe I get the same warning. I have 100GB of
memory on the hard drive and I have cleaned the computer with Mcaffee and free
software. What should I do next? I can't use this software and I doubt LR 5
would open up with my current problem.
Alex

XML Report output giving error "word cannot open the file because....

Hi All,
Greetings!
I have a standard report, 'Payables Posted Invoice Register".
The report was going in to warning beacuse of some Invalid characters in the Data.
I corrected the invalid characters and then ran the report ; it completed fine.
But now when I try to open the report output, the output is not getting open but its allowing me to save the file.
When I save it on my local machine and try to open it, I am getting an error as "word cannot open the file because it is larger than 512 megabytes".
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Can anybody please help?
Thanks,
Sachin

not sure, if the Microsoft word has limitation of file size.

Cannot open Word File because "there are problems with the contents"

Hi Everyone,
I cannot open Word File because "there are problems with the contents" unspecified error; Location: 2. Please help as I need this doc for work meeting this morning. Nothing special about this doc but links were copied into it??? However I do that all the time. I have never had this happen before. I am on a 2010 machine. I just ran a disk permissions repaired and emptied the trash but still no dice. I had several other word docs up as well when I got up this morning but they are all fine. I do not have Time Capsule turned on (which I need to do but that will be another thread/question).
Thank you,
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Ok, I found a way to open this but not sure what happened to begin with and the formatting setup is different now, almost like text editor? Not sure what happened here but hope it doesn't happen again?

TS2776 Outlook cannot open the file because it is not associated with the default identity.

Outlook cannot open the file because it is not associated with the default identity.

I've had the same problem. Even though you check the box to save it as Keynote '08, it does not open in ')8 (I get the same message)...you need to reopen it in '09.
I have even changed the name of the file in '08 and eventually get the same message.
I believe that once you open it in '09, you're committed to that.
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Acrobat cannot open the file attachment because your PDF file attachment settings do not allow......

I have an email with an attachment that requires a password the open. I can open the file but embedded in the attachment is another attachment. When I double click attachment I get the following error message. Acrobat cannot open the file attachment because your PDF file attachment settings do not allow this file type to be opened.

You would need to make a change to your registry; see http://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/AppSec/attachments.html
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Let us know if you need help with that. Either way, make sure to create a System Restore Point before editing the registry.

I just burned to disc an album of photos I created in Pages but I cannot open the file on the disc because "the format is not valid". What does this mean and how do I correct it ?

I just burned to disc an album of photos I created in Pages but I cannot open the file on the disc because "the format is not valid". What does this mean and how do I correct it ?

There are numerous thread about the same matter in this forum
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Excel cannot open the file 'file.xlsx' because the file format

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