When I open the Excel workbook I edited before, I find that the contents are confusing, so I can't edit it any more and I can't print it yet. This is a problem that many friends may encounter when dealing with Excel files. What should we do in the face of this situation?

The reason for the above situation should be that the file has been damaged. At this time, you might as well try the method introduced by the author below, which may restore the damaged Excel file (taking Excel 2003 as an example).

Trick 1: Save the workbook in SYLK format.

If the Excel file can be opened, converting the workbook into SYLK format can filter out the damaged parts in the document and then save the data.

First, open the required workbook. On the File menu, click the Save As command. In the save as type list, click the option "SYLK (*. Slk) "(Figure 1), and then click the Save button. After closing the currently open file, just open the version of SYLK that you just saved.

1. Save as SYLK

Trick 2: Switch to an earlier version.

If the Excel workbook is not saved due to startup failure, the last saved version may not be damaged. Of course, this version does not include the changes made to the document after the last save.

Close the open workbook and click No when asked whether to save the changes. On the File menu, click Open, and then double-click the workbook file.

Trick 3: Open and repair the workbook.

If you can't open the Excel file by normal methods, you can try the "Open and Repair" function in Excel 2003 to check and repair the errors in the Excel workbook.

On the File menu, click the Open command. Through the "Look in" box, locate and open the folder containing the damaged document, and select the file to be restored. Click the arrow next to the Open button, and then click Open and Repair (Figure 2).

Open and repair

Tip 4: Open the workbook with Excel viewer.

In the case that all methods can't solve the problem, we might as well consider using third-party software for recovery.

Excel viewer is a free tool for viewing Excel workbooks (see Download at the end of the article).

Double-click the download file xlviewer.exe to start the installation program, and then follow the instructions to complete the installation. After installation, click Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003 in the Start menu to start the software (Figure 3) and try to open the damaged workbook. You can open the damaged workbook in this program, and then copy the cells and paste them into a new workbook in Excel. If you want to delete Excel viewer in the future, you can delete it through Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel.

3.Excel viewer

I hope the above methods can help you recover the damaged Excel file. If you can't recover the data in the damaged workbook, you need to recreate part or the whole document.