need help opening an excel file on a mac

[JJ]

I've received an .xls file from a friend of mine who uses Windows and can't open it. I have the newest version of Microsoft Office (inc Excel), MacLinkPlus (newest vers) and icExcel (newest vers). But can't get the damn thing to open!

The error message in Excel which I get is that it cannot access the file because it may be 'read only' (which it's not -- have checked my permissions). The second try she sent has stalled out in icExcel and MacLinkPlus.

The first version she sent was 443kb and the second is 663 (or something along those lines) -- could it be the encoding of the attachment?

I'm using Mac OS 10.3.5.

Thanks!

email encoding would be my first guess. If you have M$ Office for Mac there is no reason why it should fail for you. If the file contains no special formatting, have her save it in CSV format (comma separated value). This is a basic spreadsheet format that preserves the data in each cell and should open in any spreadsheet programme you could name. However, CSV would destroy andy fancy formatting with text size or colour the Excel file might have had.

Muddahubby, I don't know anything about Windows, but I'm guessing she just chooses 'save as' then when saving chooses CSV as the format? Let me know if that's not right.

There's no fancy formatting, luckily.

Thank you thank you thank you.

Is she using a very old version of excel? That might cause a problem. Also, I know this sounds crazy, but have your tried restarting your machine? Sometimes that helps with macs.

JJ, sorry for the delay ... house packing! Yes, to save as CSV, choose 'Save As...' and then at the bottom of the dialogue box where she types the filename, she should change the 'Save As Type' option to CSV.