Microsoft Excel 97 to 2003 workbook
File type: Spreadsheet and workbook file, Microsoft Office file
Files with xls extension are best known as spreadsheets from Microsoft Excel. A spreadsheet is basically a grid of cells sorted in rows and columns. Each cell can contain text, numeric or formula data. Excel XLS spreadsheets can be opened in most other similar programs, such as OpenOffice.org Calc.
File type category:
Spreadsheet and workbook file
Microsoft Office file
Date updated: June 21, 2025
File extension xls is associated with Microsoft Excel, one of the most popular and powerful tool you can use to create format spreadsheets, graphs and much more.
The xls files are used in Microsoft Excel 97 to 2003 for Workbooks, spreadsheet document files. The XLS is Microsoft Excel's proprietary file format for storing its documents.
Microsoft Excel up until 2007 version used a proprietary binary file format called Binary Interchange File Format (BIFF) as its primary format. There are several versions of the format that have been released as it was revised over time.
The latest versions of Microsoft Office use the Open XML file format and the Excel Workbooks are stored in the Microsoft Excel Open XML Workbook files (.xlsx file suffix).
XLS format was also adopted by other programs, such as Microsoft Works. Excel spreadsheets are also generated and exported by various programs. For example SolidWorks uses XLS format to export Bill of Materials templates.
MIME types:
application/excel
application/vnd.ms-excel
application/msexcell
application/x-msexcel
application/x-excel
application/x-msexcel
application/x-dos_ms_excel
application/xls
You can open the *.xls in Microsoft Excel or any other application, which can handle the format, such as OpenOffice.org, StarOffice or Ashampoo Office.
If you want only view the *.xls files, you can use Microsoft Excel Viewer, which is free to download from Microsoft's servers.
Microsoft Office Excel also supports other spreadsheet formats. You can save the *.xls file into another format with the save as function.
You can probably convert the *.xls in other suitable applications, which can handle the files, as well.
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