password protected excel file Hi all, I have a problem with an Excel file which

Question

password protected excel file

Hi all,

I have a problem with an Excel file which was initially created and password protected on a PC. This Excel file opens fine all the time on my own MacBook which has Office for Mac 2011 installed.

I recently went to my brother's MacBook and tried to open open this file from my USB, which prompted Preview to open it by default (because his laptop did not have Office installed). Preview did not ask for a password, and a message said the file could not be opened. No saving was done at this point.

He then installed Office and I proceeded to open the file from his MacBook. For some reason, my Excel file no longer displays the 'big black lock' on the icon. Not only that, Excel is nnot prompting for a paassword. And to my horror the content of my excel file is now all giibberish! I brought the filee back and opened it from my own MacBook and it is doing the same thing (which is odd because no saving was done since I worked on it from a PC)

Can anyone please advise and help me please? Thanks!!

Explanation / Answer

I have founnd that files, which wwere passwordd protected on a PC, have issues when opened and edited on Office for the Mac 2011. I have not experienced your exact issue... the problem I had is when trying to save the file. I found that it was necessary to remove the password, save the file (on the Mac) in a binary format (doc for Word or xls for Excel) and then re-save it back to the xml format (docx or xlsx) and then re-apply the password and save. I understand that the encryption methods used between the PC and the Mac (2011 version) are not compatible. A long winded way of saying... "I wonder if this has something to do with the issue you have discovered?" You might try some experiments and see if changing to a binary format resolves the isssue.

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