iphone wont open xls email attachment

Question

Level 1

8 points

iphone wont open xls email attachment

I need to be able to open .xls email attachments on my iphone 3GS from a major customer which i receive regularly but get the following error:
*This document can't be viewed. An error occured while reading the document.*
I can open the same .xls file on my macbook pro using excel:mac2008 although i get a message first 'file error data may have been lost' which i just need to click ok and the file opens normally.
I have tried downloading 'Quickoffice' to the iphone but makes no difference.
My previous phone with windows mobile opened the same .xls attachement with no problem.
I need to solve this, please can anyone help?

3gs, iPhone OS 3.1.2

Posted on Oct 25, 2009 8:09 AM

Reply

Answer 1

wjosten

Level 10

95,321 points

Oct 25, 2009 8:45 AM in response to fruityone

XLS documents are supported as attachments to view:

Viewable document types: .jpg, .tiff, .gif (images); .doc and .docx (Microsoft Word); .htm and .html (web pages); .key (Keynote); .numbers (Numbers); .pages (Pages); .pdf (Preview and Adobe Acrobat); .ppt and .pptx (Microsoft PowerPoint); .txt (text); .rtf (rich text format); .vcf (contact information); .xls and .xlsx (Microsoft Excel).

Is the file password protected? If so, it won't open since the iphones support is only as a viewer.

Reply

Answer 2

fruityone Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 26, 2009 12:09 AM in response to wjosten

the file is not password protected. I can open it with my macbook, a PC and a windows mobile phone without entering a password but not with my iphone.

Reply

Answer 3

fruityone Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 3, 2009 3:42 AM in response to fruityone

Please can anyone help with this?

Reply

Answer 4

wjosten

Level 10

95,321 points

Nov 3, 2009 8:55 AM in response to fruityone

Question, is this an excel chart or spreadsheet you're trying to open?
How large is the file?

Reply

Answer 5

wjosten

Level 10

95,321 points

Nov 3, 2009 9:01 AM in response to fruityone

Just a shot in the dark here:

Ask the sender of the email message with the xls attachment to compose the email message in either plain text or HTML and not RTF.

See if it opens now.

Reply

Answer 6

fruityone Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 4, 2009 5:50 AM in response to wjosten

it is an excel spreadsheet and typically only 15kb

Reply

Answer 7

fruityone Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 4, 2009 5:55 AM in response to wjosten

The .xls file is automatically exported from our customers order system and they cannot change it to RTF format. This is an order we receive every day from a major customer who wont change their setup for one small supplier.

Reply

Answer 8

wjosten

Level 10

95,321 points

Nov 4, 2009 5:58 AM in response to fruityone

Have whoever sends you that attachment send it to you, but make sure that their email itself is in plain text or html format, tell them not to use RTF(Rich Text Format). Again, no RTF. See if it will open that way.

Reply

Answer 9

wjosten

Level 10

95,321 points

Nov 4, 2009 6:04 AM in response to fruityone

Then that's why it won't open. The iphone has problems with attachments like spreadsheets when the email itself is in RTF format. To get these to open, you're gonna have to use plain text or html.

Reply

Answer 10

wjosten

Level 10

95,321 points

Nov 4, 2009 6:08 AM in response to fruityone

Here's an idea, no guarantee it will work, but you may want to give it a try. Is there another computer/account, you can have the email sent to, from there have the email body converted to plain text then forwarded to the account you access on your iphone?

Reply

Answer 11

bhieb

Level 1

0 points

Nov 12, 2009 8:00 AM in response to fruityone

I ran into a similar problem. I have a vendor that embedds HTML data in an xls file and just hits save. Problem is that the iPhone viewer tries to open it as xls instead of html (and says invalid file format).

I opened the file in Excel 2003 (windows version gasp), then clicked on File > Save As and low and behold it's default was .html (indicating that is how it was saved orginally). I changed it to a normal Excel Workbook (.xls) saved, and re-emailed it and it worked fine. Also it works if I just change the file extension to .html.

So for whatever reason the iPhone viewer cannot handle an html page saved with an xls extension.

Since your sender will not change his ways, you could write some code to intercept the email, change the file extension, and resend it.

Reply