Excel 2001 doc now not opening in Excel 2004

[Chris Watson]

A coworker sent me an Excel file that she¹d created in Office 2001. She
recently upgraded to Office 2004 but then began having problems opening one
of her original files. Excel recognizes it as an Excel doc (double-click on
file and Excel opens) but it won¹t actually open the file ­ all we see is
the Excel application launch and then a brief flicker of white as though the
file was starting to open but closed almost instantly. We¹ve tried opening
it on her computer and mine (both OS 10.4.2 and Office 2004) as well as on a
PC. We see the same ³Open App, Document Flicker and Close² problem on the
PC.

Is this indicative of a corrupted file? Any way we can retrieve the data?

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Is this indicative of a corrupted file? Any way we can retrieve the data?

That would be my first guess, especially if does the same thing on a PC.
If the PC XL version was pre-XL2002 (XP) then trying with WinXL02 or
WinXL03 is worth trying.

If that doesn't work, an option I've had success with the free
OpenOffice. The most convenient version is NeoOfficeJ:

http://www.neooffice.org/

though I tend to use the X11 version found at

http://download.openoffice.org/1.1.4/index.html

which requires Apple's X11 X Window implementation:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/x11/

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Perhaps the file is hidden, or, especially if you see a flicker, a macro
running to hide the file. After you think it should be open, look in the
windows menu. If the file is visible try unhiding it, to arranging the
windows to make it visible.