How To Open An Excel File On A Mac

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Open MS-Excel and click File-Open. Browse to the location that has the XML file and click Open to open the file. A pop up with 3 options is displayed. Select As an XML table radio button. In the At startup, open all files in box, enter the location of the files that you want Excel to open automatically. Use a custom template for all new workbooks When Excel opens a new workbook, the new file is created from a template called Workbook. Find the Excel file you want to open. Right-click the file and choose 'Open With.' There will be a list showing all the apps associated with the selected file type.

  1. How To Open An Excel File On A Mac Hard Drive
  2. How To Open An Excel File On A Mac Download
  3. How To Open An Excel File On A Mac Shortcut

Microsoft's Windows 10 is operating on some 800 million devices worldwide, according to the company's website.

But what happens when your Windows breaks? Or when you Microsoft Office files corrupt what?

You feel like the only person out of 800 million not able to get to your .xls files.

This article will teach you some of the easiest ways how to open an Excel file without Excel.

But first, let's get our vocab straight.

What Kind of Files Are Excel Files?

The short answer is this: many and the most common are the .xls files and .xlsx file.

The .xls file was the unique Excel spreadsheet format for Microsoft Excel 97-2003. In 2007, Microsoft office created an open XML spreadsheet and added the extension .xlsx.

According to Microsoft's support website, there are 14 unique Excel-focused files, 10 text file formats, and 4 'other' file formats. There are also 11 file formats that the program no longer supports.

View-Only Software

These are small-file-sized programs that only display the file contents.

File Viewer Lite: This is a free Windows-friendly file viewing tool. It's produced by Sharpened Publications. It can open and view .xls, .xlsx and 150 other file types. There is a premium version of this product that adds even more file formats.

Microsoft Excel Viewer: This is also free and available through Softonic. It opens files with a similar format and view that looks like it's opened in Excel. But note it just looks like it; no functions.

Online

There are several cloud-based options for viewing and editing files. The only drawback is that they require an internet connection to use at all or to use all the program's features.

Exel For Web: Microsoft has a free version of Excel that anyone can access through a browser with a Microsoft login. It's free and you can do all the basic built-in functions of Excel. You can also use lite versions of Word, PowerPoint, and OneNote through a browser.

Google Sheet: This is part of the Google toolbox that's built into the Google Drive which is, again, available through a browser. And again, it's free. There is also a mobile application for nearly all mobile devices.

Zoho Sheets: This free sheets creator uses hundred of built-in functions to clean, visualize and analyze data. Zoho prides itself for cross-compatibility and live collaboration.

Free Software

Open-source programs can provide powerful software for file creating and editing.

Apache OpenOffice: This one of the preeminent open-source software productivity suites. This free software comes with Calc, a spreadsheet editor. There is also a free database program, called Base, for the more technical and larger management of data.

LibreOffice: It's super similar to OpenOffice. But there are key licensing differences. The big one being the types of file formats that it will view and edit versus those that are view only.

Mac

Use this service for more sophisticated and technical computing and programming interfacing.

Do You Know How to Open an Excel File Without Excel?

What did we miss? What do you think is the best way on how to open an Excel file without Excel?

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I have been working with an Excel spreadsheet (Excel for Mac 2011 14.1.0) and obviously I must have overwritten some parts and saved the document. How do I restore a previous version of an excel file on a Mac?

In other cases, a spreadsheet seems to just disappear entirely from your Mac. Luckily, macOS and Microsoft Office both include their own basic version-control systems, making it possible to view and recover previous versions. Even if both of those tools are unable to find the version you need, it's possible to use third-party software to restore the previous version of an Excel file on your Mac. In this article, you'll learn how to use all three techniques to restore an old version of an Excel spreadsheet.

How To Open An Excel File On A Mac Hard Drive

Part 1: Restore Excel Files on Mac With Time Machine

The Mac operating system itself includes tools that make it easy to revert to old versions of files. Many Mac-native applications integrate with Apple's built-in versioning system, which allows you to view and recover old versions of files. Unfortunately, Excel does not integrate with this particular system. However, if you use Time Machine to back up your Mac, you can use it to restore an old version of your Excel file. Here's how:

How To Open An Excel File On A Mac Download

  • 1. Navigate to the lof cation oyour Excel file in Finder and choose Enter Time Machine in the menu bar.

  • 2. Go through the versions presented and find the one that you want to restore to.

  • 3. Select the Restore button.

While this fix is the most convenient way to restore an old version of an Excel file (or any other kind of file), not everyone uses Time Machine to back up their Mac. Luckily, there are other easy techniques, which you'll learn about next.

Part 2: Restore Previous Version of Excel File on macOS with the Built-in Tool

Even if Microsoft Office doesn't integrate directly with Apple's versioning framework, it does include its own version control system, intended to restore files lost during power outages or computer crashes. Follow these steps:

  • 1. To look through Office's backups, start by opening the Excel file in question and click File in the menu bar. Browse to Restore > Restore to Last Saved to Recovering.

  • 2. Find the spreadsheet version that you need to restore in the list presented.

  • 3. You can choose to either click the Restore button or hold down the Option key and click the Restore button. If you hold down Option, you can click Restore a Copy and restore your old version without overwriting the current version.

Office's built-in versioning system works well in many cases. However, it isn't perfect: if you can't find the right Excel file at all, it won't be able to help you. Additionally, Excel doesn't take snapshots very frequently, so the correct version might not be available. Fortunately, even if neither of the previous two solutions are able to recover the particular version you want, there's a third option: AnyRecover.

Part 3: Recover Lost or Deleted Excel Files on Mac with Software

When nothing else can find the Excel file version you need, AnyRecover can help. It's a tool that searches your hard drive for remnants of missing files and pieces them together into a usable format. If your Excel file is truly nowhere to be found, or if you completely overwrote a spreadsheet with something else, AnyRecover Mac Data Recovery can oftentimes find the entire file intact.

Features of iMyFone AnyRecover:

Perfectly suited for recovering lost or accidentally deleted spreadsheets.

It has a free trial so you can make sure whether it will work with your files before purchasing.

Work with macOS version 10.9 and above, and it works with MacBook Pro, iMac Pro, MacBook Air, MacBook, iMac and more.

Restore a variety of document types aside from Excel, like PDF files, zip files, Word documents, and much more.

Recover the previous version of Excel file in Microsoft Excel for Mac 2011, 2016 and 2020.

Here's how to use AnyRecover to recover deleted or lost Excel files on Mac:

Step 1: Download and install the Mac version of AnyRecover. Once it's installed, start the program. Select the folder or hard drive that your Excel file was in and click the Start button to begin your scan.

How to open microsoft excel on mac. Step 2: AnyRecover must comb through the entire folder or storage device to look for deleted or overwritten files, so it can take a long time for this process to complete, depending on the size of your hard drive. You should begin to see results appear soon after starting the scan.

How To Open An Excel File On A Mac Shortcut

Step 3: Once the scan is complete, take a look at the results. You may have to look through a large number of deleted or overwritten files to find the one you want. As soon as you find the Excel file you want, click Recover and choose a place on your Mac to save the recovered Excel files.

Bonus Tip: How Can I Avoid Losing an Important Excel File on Mac Next Time?

Nearly everyone has overwritten, lost, or corrupted a file in some way before. Some people have developed effective strategies to protect themselves against file loss. A popular technique is using Save As to save to a new file name before making a significant change. This way, if the change needs to be reverted, you can simply open the old version.

Additionally, if you haven't set up Time Machine backups yet, now would be a great time to do so. In addition to safeguarding your data from accidental deletions and overwrites, Time Machine can also allow you to restore your entire Mac's hard drive if you were to lose or break your computer. In this configuration, your Mac will constantly back up your files to the hard drive in an external storage device.

Conclusion

Losing an Excel file that you've been working on for hours or days hurts. Luckily, the version control features built into macOS, Excel, and a third-party software like AnyRecover make it easy for you to view and restore previous versions of Excel files on your Mac. Even if you didn't plan ahead with your own version control strategy, it's possible to restore an old version when you make a mistake. After recovering your file, make a plan to prevent it from happening in the future, either by separating versions into different files or by taking advantage of your Mac's powerful backup capabilities.





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