Can't open some Excel documents

Question

I have constant but inconsistent problems opening Excel documents sent to me by email.
for instance today I received 2 documents -- one I was able to
open with no problems, the other started, loaded slowly BUT then got stuck at the very end with the famous spinning colour
pinwheeel appearing. I had to go into activity monitor to Force Quit. Repeated attempt gave me the same results. In the Activity Monitor it said AppleWorks 6 (not responding).
Can someone tell me why one will open but the other won't
and if there is a fix? The documents end with .xls
Thanks,
Zentor

Answer 1

Here's what I found:
first file opens OK:
ALvar2005-2006AdoptedBudget.XLS (0.03 MB),
second file has some pecular characters in the name:
AlvarStrataFeeScheduleOwnerCopy$422,300.00-2005.xls (4.31 MB)
Especially these characters after OwnerCopy:
$422,300
On my machine, the second file downloaded to my desktop as "AlvarStrataFeeScheduleOwnerCopy"
Nothing after "Copy". I added an ".xls suffix and the file opened fine in Excel.
Appleworks, on the other hand, hangs as you mention. The file seems to be quite large considering the amount of data in the sheet. I deleted all unused columns to the right of the table and all of the rows below the table. The file suddenly changed from 4.2MB to 27KB (more in line with the data). Now the file opens fine with Appleworks.
The spinning lollipop means the system is working and Appleworks may be trying to calculate all of the sheet from columns A through IV and rows 1 through 65,536. If you are patient enough, Appleworks may eventually respond. I've attached a file called "test.xls" and see if this works.
Regards,