Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

I recently switched to OpenOffice 3.2 on my home computer (along with Ubuntu 10.10) and am unable to open a Excel 2010 (xlsx) file that is password protected. The file was created on a Win7 system and I was able to open it fine before I put the password protection on it.

Now when I try to open it I get a dialog box - "Filter Selection". I have tried a few obvious choices with the following results:

MS Excel 5.0 - Unknown or Unsupported Excel file format
MS Excel 97/2000/XP - Unknown or Unsupported Excel file format
MS Excel 95 - Unknown or Unsupported Excel file format
MS Excel 2007 Binary - General Error. General input/output error
MS Excel 2007 XML - General Error. General input/output error
MS Excel 2003 XML - A blank workbook opens
ODF Spreadsheet - General Error. General input/output error

The only thing I can find when searching for this is that it was supposed to be resolved long ago, what am I missing?

Thanks!

Just tried opening it in Excel, opens just fine, password protected.

Do you still have the possibility to create another file to be uploaded here so that we can check? Beware that OOXML is not really an open format. Better avoid it. Some links in the first sticky of the Beginner section.

Since this is a "user assistance" forum (no development staff), we can't "fix" anything here, though there are other parts of openoffice.org for reporting bugs. Are there a lot of these password protected XLSX files? If not, open in Excel and then save without the password. Open that in Calc and save in ODS format, adding a password if desired. I realize this is less convenient than if OOo just opened the file, but it would serve as a workaround. (Recent versions of Excel are supposed to be able to open ODS files if the file must be usable from either product.)

Hagar de l'Est wrote:Do you still have the possibility to create another file to be uploaded here so that we can check? Beware that OOXML is not really an open format. Better avoid it. Some links in the first sticky of the Beginner section.

Thanks for the info, didn't realize xlsx was an attempt at an open format, but after reading the post you directed me to I will probably just stick with the xls format and that may solve my problem As for the creation of another file I would love to do all I can to help anyone else that may not have a choice in the matter, so are you just wanting a copy of the file in question? It is a time sheet, so I will have to delete some of the content if that has any bearing on the situation.

MrProgrammer wrote:Since this is a "user assistance" forum (no development staff), we can't "fix" anything here, though there are other parts of openoffice.org for reporting bugs. Are there a lot of these password protected XLSX files? If not, open in Excel and then save without the password. Open that in Calc and save in ODS format, adding a password if desired. I realize this is less convenient than if OOo just opened the file, but it would serve as a workaround. (Recent versions of Excel are supposed to be able to open ODS files if the file must be usable from either product.)

I was figuring that it was most likely I was doing something wrong, so I wasn't seeking a fix, but user assistance on what I was supposed to be doing It is just a single file, so I can do that quite easily. I did sucessfully open an ODF copy of the file (accidentally saved it as ODF without realizing it) and was able to open it in Excel, but it wasn't password protected at that point. I may try starting with saving it as xls to see if that is workable (since the majority of the time access will be from Excel) unless there some advantage to the ODF file format (other than the open source nature of it).

Thanks again guys!

A copy if the file is fine. Remove any personal data.

Here is a copy of the password protected file. I deleted all but one sheet and removed all information, password to open it is "OOTest"

Thanks.

No way to open it with 3.2.1 or 3.3-dev (both vanilla versions) under xubuntu 10.10.

For what it's worth I can confirm this problem: OpenOffice 3.2 on Ubuntu 10.10 cannot open a .XLSX file created with Office 2010 on Windows XP Pro.

HTH
Earthsea

In general, leaving aside password protection difficulties, it is best to pass files to and from MS Office in .doc and .xls formats, rather than .docx and .xlsx. Password protection adds a further layer of worms on top of the can of worms the .???x formats introduce. If I were worried about others accessing my personal files I would _not_ password. Instead I would work to my own USB hard disk (note: not USB key), which I would carry with me, after observing the correct USB device removal protocol from the host machines.

Dear RoryOF,

Fair enough. I am new to Ubuntu and OO so thanks for the feedback. (I only started using the .???X files because my colleagues started using Office 2007 and 2010).

One question: why do you distinguish between USB disks and flash drives? Your comment intrigues me.

Thanks,
Earthsea

It is now beginning to be realised that the life of USB sticks is limited; in many cases they fail suddenly after a relatively short number of read/write cycles. Google will throw up examples: here is one; there are others
http://ask-leo.com/can_a_usb_thumbdrive_wear_out.html

On this forum there are frequent reports of data-loss on writing to USB sticks; whether this is due to failure of the stick or improper USB removal discipline or a bug in OpenOffice or overloaded interrupt usage on the computer is not clear, but on the forum our recommendation is that one should not work direct to a stick; one should work to the internal HD and then transfer the file to the stick. USB disk drives seem more stable, but it is still _essential_ that one observe the correct removal procedure (and don't rush it! take a few extra seconds to let it finish - this is quicker than rewriting a file from scratch!)