Therefore, if you have the “Microsoft Excel won’t open” syndrome, you should read this article.

I’ll go over the causes of Excel’s refusal to open in this lesson, along with several fixes that could be of assistance.

Then let’s get going!

This instruction explains: 1. Potential Causes for Microsoft Excel Not Opening 2. How to Open Excel Files That Won't Open 2.1 Ignore DDE should not be checked 2.2 Disable Add-ins 2.3 Microsoft Office repair 2.4 Reset the associations for Excel files 2.5 Hardware graphics acceleration should be disabled. 2.6 When All Else Fails

Numerous things may go wrong with Excel because it is a tool that has to function flawlessly with other programs and operating systems.

Of course, there is also the chance that the issue is with the Excel programmer itself.

The following are some potential causes of Microsoft Excel not opening on your computer:

1. There is a troublesome add-in that prevents you from opening Excel files. If so, you’ll probably be able to open Excel programs but not a particular Excel file (or a new Excel file)
2. Before you can start opening Excel files again, it’s possible that your Excel application is damaged and has to be fixed.
3. The operating system and other apps are unable to interface with your Excel application. You may easily solve this by enabling the setting, at which point your files will resume functioning (covered later in this tutorial)
4. When you try to open an Excel file, it won’t recognize what program to use since the file association is broken. Once more, this may be easily fixed by just resetting the file associations. This problem frequently affects many users who have upgraded their operating system or Excel.
5. The file you’re trying to open is damaged. This frequently occurs when you copy a file to an external or network device and then transfer it to your PC, or when someone else shares the file with you. It isn’t much you can do in this situation other than to ensure that you create file backups in the future.

Let’s now examine some of the techniques you might employ to resolve the Excel files not opening problem.

These fixes are listed in the order that they are most likely to work.

Excel communicates with other programs via DDE.

The DDE setting is normally off, but if it were to accidentally turn on, it may prevent your PC from opening Excel files.

This will prevent you from opening specific Excel files but will allow you to launch your Excel programmer from the start menu.

The steps to resolve this DDE problem are as follows:

From the Start menu, access the Excel file.

On the File Tab, click

Select Options.

Click on the ‘Advanced’ option on the left pane of the Excel Options dialogue box that appears.

Down the page, find the General section.

Ensure that the setting “Ignore another programmer that employs Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)” is off.

Excel Options dialogue box should be closed.

The problem should be resolved now if this setting was previously enabled and you have disabled it using the aforementioned steps.

Continue reading if this approach doesn’t work for you.

Many users use third-party add-ins for Excel to expand its usefulness and give them access to several functions that are not included by default.
When I had a full-time day job, one of the add-ins I used was called “Think Cell,” which allowed us to make stunning charts that were not feasible with Excel alone.

And occasionally, these add-ins cause you to be unable to open your Excel files.

Disabling the add-in is a simple workaround for the issue.

The following are the steps you can take in Excel to disable an add-in:

From the Start menu, access the Excel file.

On the File Tab, click

Select Options.

Select the Add-ins option in the left pane of the Excel Options dialogue box.

Try once more to open an Excel file that wouldn’t open before. The file ought to open right now if the item was the problem.

Many times, it’s a one-off problem, and enabling the add-in today won’t affect how well it works. If the issue persists after you allow the add-in, you may be certain that the add-in is corrupt and has to be permanently removed.

Another reason Excel files could not open is if the Microsoft Office program has to be fixed or reinstalled because it became corrupt.

But let’s attempt the repair option first as reinstalling requires a bit more work.

To fix the Microsoft Office programmer on your computer, follow these steps:

R key while keeping the Windows key down. This will trigger the ‘Run’ dialogue box to open.

“appwiz. CPL” should be typed into the run box. This will launch the dialogue box for applications and features.

In the list, look for Microsoft Office.

Change can be selected by right-clicking the Microsoft Office option (in case you see the repair option right here, click on it)

Click the Quick Repair option in the ensuing dialogue box.

choose the Repair option.

It will fix your Microsoft Office application in a few minutes if you follow the instructions that appear.

If a corrupt Microsoft Office application was the problem, the solutions listed above ought to resolve it.

But let’s try some more fixes in case you’re still unable to open Excel files.

File association ensures that the Excel program is used to open an Excel file when it is opened.

And occasionally, these file associations are incorrect, so when you click on an Excel file, it may not recognize that the Excel program is required to access it.

Resetting file associations is the solution.

The steps to achieve this are as follows:

Activate the Control Panel.
Select Programs.

Then choose Default Programs.

Select “Set your default applications” and then

Scroll down to “Reset to the Microsoft suggested defaults” in the Default Apps box that appears, and then click the Reset button.

Your Excel files would open if there was a mismatched file association causing the problem.

Because we have changed every application’s default setting on your system, any manual changes you may have made—such as choosing a specific file extension to be opened with a particular application—would also have been reset to the default.

Select the “Choose default applications by file type” option if you only want to change the default settings for the Excel files and not for the other applications.

Find the Excel file extensions (.xls,.xlsx,.xlsb,.csv, etc.) and make XLS the default application for them on the screen that appears.