Questions And Answers
| Q: |
Can Recovery for Excel repair my Excel spreadsheet? |
| A: |
The effective way to find out if a Excel spreadsheet is recoverable is to try the demo version of Recovery for Excel on it. Visit the Demo page for a free copy of the demo.
Product specifications with lists of items recovered and not recovered is available at the Product Information page.
Note: Always backup your original corrupted Excel spreadsheet before proceeding with any recovery activity! |
| Q: |
What limitations does the demo version of Recovery for Excel have? |
| A: |
The demo version recovers limited amount of cells in the broken spreadsheet while replacing data in others with demo placeholder. Commercial version will recover demo-limited data as well.
No additional records, stylesheets or other elements and formatting of the original spreadsheet will be recovered by commercial version of Recovery for Excel if not present in demo output. |
| Q: |
I have tried the demo. How do I decide whether to purchase the full version of Recovery for Excel? |
| A: |
Evaluating the results of demo recovery can help in making the decision. |
| Q: |
What are the differences between product licenses? |
| A: |
Details of current licensing scheme are described at the Licensing page. |
| Q: |
Why do results of recovery contain less data than the original Excel spreadsheet? |
| A: |
This is normal. The damaged parts of your Excel spreadsheet will convert to zero size on output. The other common reason of file size decrease is when some of features of the original spreadsheet are not supported and therefore absent from the recovered spreadsheet.
Demo-recovered spreadsheet is smaller because it mostly consists of demo placeholders than actual data. |
| Q: |
Running Recovery for Excel from command line (through Windows Start -> Run menu). |
| A: |
If your license type is Enterprise or Service, you can run Recovery for Excel from command line and use these calls in your batch files. Standard version does not support command line. The format for command line call is:
xr.exe <original filename with path> "<path to directory to store the recovered file(s)>"
(without angle brackets).
Please note that the directory for recovered file(s) should be created before starting the recovery.
Command line mode supports patterns '*' (replaces group of symbols) and '?' (replaces one symbol).
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| Q: |
Recovered spreadsheet causes Excel application crash. Is there a workaround for this? |
| A: |
Try to restore the original corrupted file in a Safe mode. In this mode Recovery for Excel replaces complicated formulae with their values. To enable this option, check the appropriate checkbox while selecting the file to recover.
Please, note, that the necessity of Safe mode usage is an extraordinary case! Therefore, we would appreciate it greatly if you contact our technical support team with the detailed description of the problem occurred.
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Recovery for Excel Error Messages
| Q: |
Recovery for Excel Error: Internal Program Error message. |
| A: |
Run Recovery for Excel in a logged mode and contact our support team with detailed description of the problem and the log file.
To create log file, please hold the SHIFT key while clicking the Recover button on the toolbar of Recovery for Excel or selecting the Recover: item in the main menu. You can also press CTRL+SHIFT+R after launching Recovery for Excel. |
| Q: |
Recovery for Excel Error: Not enough disk space. |
| A: |
To fix this problem you need to set temporary directory to the drive with free space available (2-3 times of the original spreadsheet size). Fix the Windows environment variable to use it. Do the following:
- Open System in Control Panel.
- On the Advanced tab, click Environment Variables, then click the name of the user variable (TEMP or TMP) you want to change.
- Click Edit to change value.
- Set path to the location where temporary data should be stored (e.g., e:\).
- Restart computer for changes to take in effect.
- Run the software again.
You can also use the special environment variable called OFFICERECOVERY_TMP to set the directory where Recovery for Excel should store its temporary files. Use the method shown above to add/edit environment variable. |
Excel Error Messages
| Q: |
Damage to the file was so extensive that repairs were not possible. Excel attempted to recover your formulas and values, but some data may have been lost or corrupted. |
| A: |
All versions of Excel |
| Q: |
"*.xls" cannot be accessed. The file may be read-only, or you may be trying to access a read-only location. Or, the server the document is stored on may not be responding. |
| A: |
All versions of Excel |
| Q: |
The file is not in a recognizable format.
If you know the file is from another program which is incompatible with Microsoft Office Excel, click Cancel, then open this file in its original application. If you want to open the files later in Microsoft Office Excel, save it in a format that is compatible, such as text format.
If you suspect the file is damaged, click Help for more information about solving the problem.
If you still want to see what text is contained in the file, click OK. Then click Finish in the Text Import Wizard. |
| A: |
All versions of Excel |
| Q: |
Excel cannot complete this task with available resources. Choose less data or close other applications. |
| A: |
All versions of Excel |
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