Excel Format Xlsx

• How To Open Xlsx Files
• Microsoft Excel Xlsx Converter
• Excel Vba File Format Xlsx
• Sample Xlsx File

Specifies the Excel (.xlsx) Extensions to the Office OpenXML SpreadsheetML File Format, which are extensions to the Office Open XML fileformats as described in [ISO/IEC-29500-1]. The extensions are specified usingconventions provided by the Office Open XML file formats as described in[ISO/IEC-29500-3].

XLSX, Microsoft Excel Open XML Spreadsheet (.xlsx) XLSX files are produced by the applications of Microsoft's 2007 Office suite, namely by the product called Microsoft Excel, a spreadsheet processing software that is known all around the globe. To save the workbook in the current Excel Workbook file format, click.xlsx. To save the file in the new binary file format, click.xlsb. To save the workbook as a template, click.xltx. If the workbook contains macros that you want to retain, click.xlsm. MS Excel saves workbooks as XLSX or XLS file format by default. In Excel 2003 and earlier versions, files are saved as XLS. On the other hand, the files get saved in XLSX file format in Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, and 2019 versions. You may encounter the error ‘Excel file extension not valid' due to an incompatible Excel file extension.

View and edit.xlsx,.xls,.csv,.tsv,.ods,.sxc files online, for free. View any Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice Calc file via Zoho Sheet.

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How To Open Xlsx Files

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Reservation of Rights. All otherrights are reserved, and this notice does not grant any rights other than asspecifically described above, whether by implication, estoppel, or otherwise.

Tools.The Open Specifications documentation does not require the use of Microsoftprogramming tools or programming environments in order for you to develop animplementation. If you have access to Microsoft programming tools andenvironments, you are free to take advantage of them. Certain OpenSpecifications documents are intended for use in conjunction with publiclyavailable standards specifications and network programming art and, as such,assume that the reader either is familiar with the aforementioned material orhas immediate access to it.

Support.For questions and support, please contact dochelp@microsoft.com.

XLSX is well-known format for Microsoft Excel documents that was introduced by Microsoft with the release of Microsoft Office 2007. Based on structure organized according to the Open Packaging Conventions as outlined in Part 2 of the OOXML standard ECMA-376, the new format is a zip package that contains a number of XML files. The underlying structure and files can be examined by simply unzipping the .xlsx file.

Brief History

XLSX file format was introduced in 2007 and uses the Open XML standard adapted by Microsoft back in 2000. Previous to XLSX, the common file format used was XLS that was pure binary file format. The new file type has added advantages of small file sizes, less changes of corruption and well-formatted images representation. It was in the early 2000 when Microsoft decided to go for the change to accommodate the standard for Office Open XML. By 2007, this new file format became part of Office 2007 and is carried on in the new versions of Microsoft Office as well.

XLSX File Format Specifications

Microsoft Excel Xlsx Converter

In order to see what is inside the XLSX file, just rename it to ZIP file by changing its extension and then extract it to view the constituent files of this Excel workbook. A blank workbook, when extracted to its files, has the following constituent files and folders.

[Content_Types].xml

This page and associated content may beupdated frequently. We recommend you subscribe to the RSSfeed to receive update notifications.

Published Version

Previous Versions

Preview Versions

From time to time, Microsoft maypublish a preview, or pre-release, version of an Open Specifications technicaldocument for community review and feedback. To submit feedback for a previewversion of a technical document, please follow any instructions specified forthat document. If no instructions are indicated for the document, pleaseprovide feedback by using the Open Specification Forums.

How To Open Xlsx Files

The preview period for a technical document varies.Additionally, not every technical document will be published for preview.

A preview version of this document may beavailable on the Word,Excel, and PowerPoint Standards Support page. After the previewperiod, the most current version of the document is available on this page.

Development Resources

Findresources for creating interoperable solutions for Microsoft software,services, hardware, and non-Microsoft products:

Plugfestsand Events, Test Tools,DevelopmentSupport, and Open SpecificationsDev Center.

Intellectual Property Rights Notice for Open Specifications Documentation

• Technical Documentation. Microsoft publishes OpenSpecifications documentation ('this documentation') for protocols, fileformats, data portability, computer languages, and standards support.Additionally, overview documents cover inter-protocol relationships andinteractions.

• Copyrights. This documentation is covered by Microsoftcopyrights. Regardless of any other terms that are contained in the terms ofuse for the Microsoft website that hosts this documentation, you can makecopies of it in order to develop implementations of the technologies that aredescribed in this documentation and can distribute portions of it in yourimplementations that use these technologies or in your documentation asnecessary to properly document the implementation. You can also distribute inyour implementation, with or without modification, any schemas, IDLs, or codesamples that are included in the documentation. This permission also applies toany documents that are referenced in the Open Specifications documentation.

• No Trade Secrets. Microsoft does not claim any tradesecret rights in this documentation.

• Patents. Microsoft has patents that might cover yourimplementations of the technologies described in the Open Specificationsdocumentation. Neither this notice nor Microsoft's delivery of thisdocumentation grants any licenses under those patents or any other Microsoftpatents. However, a given Open Specifications document might be covered by theMicrosoft Open SpecificationsPromise or the Microsoft CommunityPromise. If you would prefer a written license, or if thetechnologies described in this documentation are not covered by the OpenSpecifications Promise or Community Promise, as applicable, patent licenses areavailable by contacting iplg@microsoft.com.

• License Programs. To see all of the protocols in scopeunder a specific license program and the associated patents, visit the Patent Map.

• Trademarks. The names of companies and products containedin this documentation might be covered by trademarks or similar intellectualproperty rights. This notice does not grant any licenses under those rights.For a list of Microsoft trademarks, visit www.microsoft.com/trademarks.

• Fictitious Names. The example companies, organizations,products, domain names, email addresses, logos, people, places, and events thatare depicted in this documentation are fictitious. No association with any realcompany, organization, product, domain name, email address, logo, person,place, or event is intended or should be inferred.

Reservation of Rights. All otherrights are reserved, and this notice does not grant any rights other than asspecifically described above, whether by implication, estoppel, or otherwise.

Tools.The Open Specifications documentation does not require the use of Microsoftprogramming tools or programming environments in order for you to develop animplementation. If you have access to Microsoft programming tools andenvironments, you are free to take advantage of them. Certain OpenSpecifications documents are intended for use in conjunction with publiclyavailable standards specifications and network programming art and, as such,assume that the reader either is familiar with the aforementioned material orhas immediate access to it.

Support.For questions and support, please contact dochelp@microsoft.com.

XLSX is well-known format for Microsoft Excel documents that was introduced by Microsoft with the release of Microsoft Office 2007. Based on structure organized according to the Open Packaging Conventions as outlined in Part 2 of the OOXML standard ECMA-376, the new format is a zip package that contains a number of XML files. The underlying structure and files can be examined by simply unzipping the .xlsx file.

Brief History

XLSX file format was introduced in 2007 and uses the Open XML standard adapted by Microsoft back in 2000. Previous to XLSX, the common file format used was XLS that was pure binary file format. The new file type has added advantages of small file sizes, less changes of corruption and well-formatted images representation. It was in the early 2000 when Microsoft decided to go for the change to accommodate the standard for Office Open XML. By 2007, this new file format became part of Office 2007 and is carried on in the new versions of Microsoft Office as well.

XLSX File Format Specifications

Microsoft Excel Xlsx Converter

In order to see what is inside the XLSX file, just rename it to ZIP file by changing its extension and then extract it to view the constituent files of this Excel workbook. A blank workbook, when extracted to its files, has the following constituent files and folders.

[Content_Types].xml

This is the only file that is found at the base level when the zip is extracted. It lists the content types for parts within the package. All references to the XML files included in the package are referenced in this XML file.

_rels (Folder)

This is the Relationships folder that contains a single XML file that stores the package-level relationships. Links to the key parts of the Xlsx files are contained in this file as URIs. These URIs identify the type of relationship of each key part to the package. This includes the relationship to primary office document located as xl/workbook.xml and other parts within docProps as core and extended properties.

docProps

This folder contains the overall document properties. These include a set of core properties, a set of extended or application-specific properties and a thumbnail preview of the document. A blank workbook has two files in this folder namely app.xml and core.xml. The core.xml contains information like author, date created and saved, and modified. App.xml contains information about the content of the file.

xl (Folder)

This is the main folder that contains all the details about the contents of the workbook. By default, it has following folders:

• _rels
• theme
• worksheets

and following xml files:

• styles.xml
• workbook.xml

XLSX Format Example

For each Excel worksheet contained in a workbook, there is one XML file. You can find these XML files in xl/worksheets folder. All the information contained in a worksheet is organized in different sections in the XML file. Let's examine a sample worksheet from a workbook which is shown in the following image.

As can be seen, this worksheet contains contents in cells A1 through B2 and an image. In addition, cell G13 is currently the active cell in the worksheet. Now, let's examine the xl/worksheets/sheet1.xml file to see how this information is represented in the XML file. Contents of this XML file are as shown below.

Excel Vba File Format Xlsx

1. The tab has theme color applied to it. Its mentioned in the XML file with tag following the theme id.
2. The tabSelected value is set to 1 which shows that this is the selected sheet
3. As can be seen in first image above, cell G13 in the worksheet is active cell which is also mentioned in the XML file.
4. The sheetData tab represents the data contained in the worksheet. However, you can see that the original contents of the worksheet are nowhere in this section. This is because the text is indirectly referred from 'sharedStrings' XML sheet. This linking ensures that each text is saved only once and can be referenced again in order to save space.
5. The image as can be seen is referenced by reference id 'rId2'

References

Sample Xlsx File

See Also