How to open an XLSX file without Excel
Someone sent you an .xlsx spreadsheet, and you have no Excel or no Office subscription. You can still look at it for free — which way depends on whether you need to change it.
What XLSX is
XLSX is Excel’s spreadsheet format since 2007. Inside it is a ZIP archive with the sheets, values, formulas and formatting, so many programs understand it, not only Excel.
Five free ways
- Excel on the web. The free web version at office.com with a Microsoft account. The file is uploaded to OneDrive.
- Google Sheets. Upload the file to Google Drive and open it in Sheets. The file ends up in Google’s cloud.
- LibreOffice Calc. A free program for Windows, Mac and Linux that opens, edits and saves XLSX.
- Numbers. Apple’s free app on the Mac and iPhone opens Excel files.
- OsonKit. Open the XLSX viewer in your browser — nothing to install, no account, and no upload.
A quick look in the browser
Drop the spreadsheet on OsonKit. You see every sheet, with values formatted as in the workbook, and large tables scroll smoothly. The cell search highlights every match. It works on a computer and on a phone, and a file of salaries or customers never goes to someone else’s server.
- Formulas are not recalculated: you see the values Excel saved in the file. Cells cannot be edited.
- Charts and pictures on the sheets are not shown.
- Files up to 20 MB, up to 100 sheets and up to a million rows per sheet. Old .xls workbooks and LibreOffice .ods spreadsheets open too — in the XLS and ODS viewers.
Which to choose
Need to change the spreadsheet? LibreOffice or Excel on the web. Just need to look, especially if it holds personal data? Open it in the browser without uploading — it is quicker and safer.