I'm running CoolSpools and am having problems opening Excel files in Excel 2010 and later.

There are a number of known issues relating to opening of Excel files created by CoolSpools.  In order to overcome these issues we recommend updating to the latest CoolSpools version and fix pack level.

These issues are related to, but separate from, those already fixes in respect of Windows 7. See this FAQ answer for further details of known Windows 7 issues and their solution.

Updates to Microsoft Office can result in additional internal validation checks being applied to files when they are opened, (see this Microsoft knowledgebase article for an example), which means that files that opened without problems in earlier versions of Excel cannot be opened in a newer version. This is not unreasonable, but, unfortunately, diagnosing the cause of these issues is difficult and time-consuming as Office does not provide any indication as to what problem is preventing it from opening the file, leaving us often (quite literally) looking for a single stray bit in several megabytes of data.

The issues in this area can be categorized at two levels:

• Files that cannot be opened at all

  On occasions, Microsoft Excel will fail to open a file that can be opened quite happily by earlier versions of Excel. Excel may report the file as being corrupt and attempt to repair it. The repair may be partially successful, or may fail completely.

  As at the end of 2020 we believe that we have fixes in place for all reported issues of this kind, but this may change over time.

• Issues causing Excel to open files in "Protected View"

  Protected View is a security feature introduced in Office 2010. When a file is opened in Protected View, a red banner appears at the top of the screen and the user must click OK to enable editing of the file.

  Protected View can also be triggered if Office considers that the file has come from an "unsafe location", such as a network drive, or has been received as an email attachment. There are settings in the Trust Center area of the Excel options which allow you to manage this feature.

  We believe we now have fixes for CoolSpools to all currently known issues of this kind.

If you are encountering problems with opening files in Excel, you should first ensure that you have installed the latest fix pack or PTF for the product you are running.

If you continue to experience the problem with files that were created after the latest fix pack or PTF was installed, please raise an issue with us through the support portal.

Please remember that any files that were created before the fix was applied will continue to give problems. The fix can only ensure that newly created files open without problems under Excel. If you cannot recreate the files that are giving problems, you will need to open them with an earlier version of Excel and re-save them before they can be opened by Excel.