Since I upgraded to Mtn Lion Excel has been opening all documents as read-only and forcing me to rename the document everytime I try to save it. Is there a way to fix/change this? Is anyonelse having the same problem?
MacBook Air, OS X Mountain Lion, MS Excel 2011
I am having this exact problem. I tried creating a new document, saving it, and then when I open the new document, it comes up as read-only.
Not sure if it is the same issue, but had several sheets saving as read only and the readonly box grayed out so you cant change it. Did some searching and seems if you have a front or back slash in the file name you can save the file but it comes up as read only. I had a file name like school/homework.xlsx changed the name to school_homework.xlsx and problem went away file saved wtihout read only access (read only check box was now usable as well) .
It doesn't seem to make sense, but I did the CMD+I thing in the Finder and just unlocked the file. It already said read-write, but unlocking it made the problem go away.
Thank you for this gbskater! Totally solved my most baffling problem! Changed name of my spreadsheet to replace the "/" and problem solved!
I had this problem. Different cause than those mentioned here.
One particular Excel file (named as "Schedules") would open only as "read-only." If I renamed it to something else (e.g. "Schedules 2"), it would open properly as read-write. If I saved it in a different directory with the same name "Schedules", it was fine. On the other hand, if I created a brand new file in the same directory with the same name "Schedules", the new file would be tainted with the same problem.
I eventually ruled out that Excel was the problem, because I tried opening the "Schedules" Excel file with TextEdit, which opened it, but also reported it locked.
I eventually determined that there was a hidden file in that particular directory called "~$Schedules." It was hidden in Finder, but you could see it if you did ls -la in Terminal, or if you searched from Finder for hidden files in that directory. It was apparently causing OS X itself to consider any file called "Schedules" in that directory to be locked. I deleted that and the problem went away.
You're a genious, gbskater. This was driving me crazy.
Solved my problem! Thanks 🙂
Thank you for taking away a serious irritation!
Excel read-only problem and Mtn Lion
