Office 2008 Mac - won't open its own .xlsx files!

[DWTJ09]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel I have a new iMac, with Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac. I'm a teacher, and I work on a Dell laptop running XP with Excel 2004 at school. I do most of my file creation and editing at home on the iMac. I routinely ferry files back and forth on a flash drive, but always keep copies on the Mac. When I forget to save as .xls, the iMac has been unable to open the .xlsx copy on the flash drive, even if I never opened the file on the laptop. Until the last few days, I WAS able to open the .xlsx copy saved on the Mac. Now it won't even open those. I had to recreate a couple of grade summary documents and save as .xls.

Why would the Office 2008 for Mac version of Excel be unable to open its OWN .xlsx files, either on the flash drive or saved on the Mac? This is annoying and occasionally a major problem, depending on how fast I need to be able to retrieve a particular file. Fortunately, my Excel files don't tend to be mega-spreadshets with macros, etc., so I have been able to reconstruct them, but I don't have time for this!

 

[rugnaorp]

What happens when they won't open? Do you get an error message? If so, what is the message?

If you haven't done so, make sure you're using the latest version. Right now, that's 12.2.3, but I think everyone is hoping for another update soon.

 

[DWTJ09]

The message reads: "Excel cannot open this file. The file might have been damaged or modified from its original format."

I had downloaded 12.2.3 a few weeks ago to see if it would help with issues with files that move back and forth between the Mac and the school laptop running XP and Excel 2004. It didn't.