Microsoft excel/word files will not open in Catilina

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Level 1

8 points

Microsoft excel/word files will not open in Catilina

Anyone else having issues with MS file formats for Excel/Word no longer opening in Numbers/Pages after upgrading to Catilina? Prior to upgrading I could open all my historical (and I have 1000's) Excel/Word files no problem, now I get an error message ....The document "filename/xlsx" could not be opened"..... I called Apple support and the tech was not helpful, basically said they have ben getting some calls, that he really has no explanation why and my options are to call MS support and see if they have a way to convert or subscribe to MS 365. I don't want to pay for a subscription service I use sparingly and would prefer to use my Apple apps going forward. Any suggestion from wiser folks than me out there would be appreciated.

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.15

Posted on Dec 14, 2019 4:12 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

macjack

Level 10

111,168 points

Dec 14, 2019 4:18 PM in response to grewatso

If you are running Office 2011 that will not run on Catalina. You need to upgrade to Office 365 or Office for Mac 2019. Office 2016 has free update available.

https://products.office.com/en-us/compare-all-microsoft-office-products-b

Or you can try the free LibreOffice:

https://www.libreoffice.org

You can also use the free Mac apps in iWorks. Pages, Numbers and Keynote.

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Answer 2

Barry

Level 9

59,861 points

Dec 14, 2019 11:39 PM in response to grewatso

Hi grewatso.

Your reply to macjack does not support your statement (by clicking the green checkmark) that he has 'solved' your issue, although I suspect he has offered a workable solution.

macjack wrote:

Or you can try the free LibreOffice:

https://www.libreoffice.org

LibreOffice does, open xlsx and docx files, and in some cases offes a mre compllete and accurate translation of those files than Numbers or Pages. Do give it a try.

As to opening these files in Numbers, a suggestion seen in several of the posts regarding these 'can't open' issues involving Catalina should also be on your what to do list:

Restart your Mac. Restart Numbers/Pages.

The has been reported to solve these issues in several posts since Catalina was released. Several people reported it as a temporary fix, rquiring repetition at intervals.

Do a Startup into Safe Mode.

Restart the Mac. Immediately on hearing the startup chime, press and hold the Shift key until you see the Apple logo and a progress bar beneath it on the screen.

Startup will be slower than the usual startup as Safe Mode runs several more housekeeping routines compared to a

normal' startup. You'll also notice a deterioration in video peformance in Safe Mode. This will disappear after a 'normal' startup.

Regards,

Barry

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Answer 3

grewatso Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 14, 2019 7:41 PM in response to macjack

Thanks for the info, I understand what the choices are and I was hoping to avoid upgrading my old Office suite at all. I'd prefer just to use use the free Mac Apps (Pages and Numbers) but here is the problem. Prior to Catalina, I could open and save .doc/.docx and .xls/.xlsx files no problem. After Catalina that functionality no longer works. Apple support was less than helpful saying yup its broken, no real reason why. Their recommendation is to upgrade MSOffice (defeating the purpose of having and using the Mac apps at all) or I can call MS and see if they have an easy way to convert every one of my spreadsheets/documents (there are 100's maybe 1000's) from MS file format extensions to Mac format file extensions. To me it appears the updatedMac Apps that run with Catalina are pretty much useless for anything but Mac created/saved documents and spreadsheets.

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Answer 4

grewatso Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 15, 2019 1:07 PM in response to Barry

Thanks Barry, not sure how but I must have inadvertently checked as solved my apologies. Thank you also for the help and your first suggestion worked, I rebooted my MacBook and pages and Number will now open the .doc/docx and .xls/xlsx files. I will keep all the other suggestions handy for future reference. Thank you and macjack both for the advise and help. PS also downloading Libreoffice as well.

Merry Christmas.

Gregg

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Microsoft excel/word files will not open in Catilina

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