Microsoft Excel

[netibiza]

A shop is trying to email me a list and is using excel but since January I cannot open the list, when I click on download file, it says it has failed and to try again, but nothing happens,when I pointed this out to the shop they sent it another way Doc1.doc.x and I still can't open it, What am I doing wrong, because all the other customers seem to be able to open it. At one point it said to change something in my preferences, but what are they? Thank you for trying at least to understand my probs.

[pingping]

Have you got a spam filter on your PC? If so, you may need to press the Ctrl key when opening the document to disable to spam filter.

[netibiza]

No idea, so I'll try it now, thank you.

[Whickerman]

What version of Excel do you have?

[dundurn]

Yes, it sounds like they're using a newer version than you can cope with. When you hit this problem it's not always possible to get an accurate error message.

[netibiza]

It's Windows XP and the shop did say they had a newer version, guess I'll give up and use smoke signals.

[factor-fiction]

You may have XP but are you sure you have you got Excel included?

[Jugglering]

Doc1.doc would normally be a *Word* file, not an Excel spreadsheet - they have a *.xls extension. If it really is a spreadsheet, ask them to do a "Save As" and for them to save it as say Excel n-1 or n-2 ie going back a few versions. However, factor30 may well be right... not all versions of Windows Home XP come with Excel pre-installed - are you sure you have Excel ? (I only have MS Works Spreadsheet for example)

[Huderon]

If you don't have Excel installed, or the shop use a more recent version than the one you have, why not go to the MS website and download the Excel viewer program ? There should be one around which will work for files created with the version of Excel the shop have, and you will be able to view the files, though not make any changes to them