Open Excel Without Excel

An .xlsx workbook, a binary .xlsb or an old .xls opens right in your browser — with a sheet picker, real dates and filters across the whole sheet. The file stays on your computer.

Open your workbook Download for Windows

Free for personal use. .xlsx, .xlsm, .xlsb and .xls (Excel 97–2003, Excel 5.0/95) are supported. Windows version — 3.5 MB, no installation: details. Organizations: license.

Any sheet

The first visible sheet opens; the others are chosen in “File parsing”. Hidden sheets are marked.

Dates are dates

A serial number with a date style becomes a date, and the 1904 date system (workbooks from Mac) is taken into account. A date written as text — such as “2026-07-27 00:24:59” — is recognized too.

Codes are not damaged

A text cell stays text: 00123456789 does not become a number, a long number does not go into scientific notation.

Workbooks not made by Excel

Exports from accounting and ERP systems and from programs built on the OpenXML SDK write a workbook differently from Excel — with prefixes in the markup and absolute paths. Such workbooks open the same way.

Your file never leaves your computer. Parsing happens in the browser, in a background thread. The page's security policy forbids sending data to third-party addresses — you can check this in the developer tools. After the first visit the app keeps working offline.

What is parsed

What	How
Merged cells	the value is repeated across the area — the way it looks in Excel; can be turned off in “File parsing”
Formulas	the value that Excel calculated at save time is shown; the formula text is visible in the record inspector
Formula errors	`#DIV/0!` and the like stay as they are and are not turned into blanks
Empty rows at the top	a report title above the table can be skipped; empty rows are skipped automatically
Large workbooks	only the selected sheet is read, not the whole workbook; ZIP64 is supported

Having trouble? See opening XLSX without Excel and what to do when an XLSX won't open. Dates that sort wrongly: dates stored as text.

Old .xls

Excel 97–2003 and Excel 5.0/95 workbooks are parsed by a dedicated binary-format parser — without Excel and without re-saving. In Excel 5.0/95 text is stored in a code page, and if it looks like garbage, change the encoding in “File parsing”. See opening old XLS files.

Formulas in .xls are stored as a parsed tree, not as text, so you only see the calculated value. A password-protected workbook does not open — with a clear message, not silence.

The binary .xlsb workbook

Excel saves large workbooks as .xlsb: the same ZIP, but the sheets inside are not XML but a compact binary form. Google Sheets and many viewers do not open such files; here they open like ordinary ones: sheets, dates, merged cells, a report title above the header. Formulas show their calculated value; to edit, export to .xlsx. More: how to open an XLSB file and XLSB to XLSX or CSV.

What to do with the sheet next

Filters, sorting, grouping with totals, duplicate search, comparison with another file — across the whole sheet, not just the visible part. The result is exported to Excel, CSV, DBF, JSON or SQL. Several open tabs can be combined into one workbook — a sheet for each.

Edits to an .xlsx can be saved back, but the workbook is rebuilt in the process: data is kept, formatting — colours, widths, formulas — is not. If formatting matters, edit in Excel and use this to look and check.

FAQ

Are formulas recalculated?

No. The value Excel calculated before saving the file is shown — it is stored next to the formula. If the workbook was produced by a program that does not calculate formulas, the value may be missing.

How many rows can it handle?

A sheet is parsed into memory as a whole: up to 384 MB unpacked. That is over a million rows of ordinary width.

Why did a date column open as text?

It means the dates in it are written as text and could not be recognized — for example, the column holds many values of a different kind. Exports from business systems often write dates as text; such columns are recognized if almost all values are written that way.

Can I open an .xls if Excel is not installed?

Yes, an installed Excel is not needed: the file is parsed in the browser.

In depth

How to open an XLSX file without ExcelHow to open an .xlsx workbook without Microsoft Excel: in the browser, nothing to install and no upload to a server. Sheets, dates, merged cells, export.
XLSX won't open: workbooks that were not made by ExcelWhy an .xlsx exported by another program opens in Excel but not elsewhere: tag prefixes, absolute paths, BOM. How to open such a workbook and what else can go wrong.
Dates that are really textA date like 27/07/2026 00:24:59 written as text sorts as a string: 01/08 comes before 27/07. Where such dates come from and how to turn them into real dates.
Old .xls files without ExcelOpen .xls files from Excel 97–2003 and Excel 95 without Excel installed: legacy encodings, formulas, passwords, merged cells. Export to .xlsx and CSV without losses.
How to open an XLSB fileWhat an XLSB file (Excel Binary Workbook) is and how to open it without Excel: online in the browser, with no upload to a server. Sheets, dates, formulas.
XLSB to XLSX or CSVConvert an Excel binary workbook (.xlsb) to .xlsx, CSV, DBF or JSON in the browser, without Excel and without uploading the file. Dates stay dates, codes stay text.