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XLSX - Microsoft Excel Open XML Spreadsheet

What is a XLSX file

XLSX files are produced by the applications of Microsoft's 2007 Office suite, namely by the product called Microsoft Excel, a spreadsheet processing software that is known all around the globe. As a very efficient tool, Excel can format and create spreadsheets and graphs, as well as processing complex mathematics queries among others. Diverse spreadsheets with various data sources, formulas, and multiple workbooks can be created with this tool. The thus resulting files can be saved as the XML format files with the XLSX extension.

The improvement of file and data management as well as data recovery is only one advantage of the XLSX file extension. This XML based file format extends what has been possible with the earlier XLS files and other binary files that could be created by earlier versions of Microsoft Excel. Any XML supporting application can not only access but also work with the data stored in those files. In addition, due to the fact that in XML information is basically stored as plain text, security concerns when sending such files over the internet have been drastically reduced. Corporate firewalls do not pose any hindrance for XLSX files anymore.

Here's a small, but not exhaustive list of programs that can open XLSX documents:

  • Microsoft Excel 2007
  • Open Office
  • Oxygen Office Progessional (Linux)