XLS
Microsoft Excel Binary Spreadsheet (legacy)
XLS is the binary spreadsheet format used by Microsoft Excel from its first Windows release in 1987 until Excel 2007 introduced the XML-based XLSX format. The format is stored in a Compound Document structure (OLE2) and encodes worksheets, formulas, and charts in a proprietary binary layout. Reverse- engineered implementations in LibreOffice and Google Sheets have good but imperfect compatibility with XLS files that use advanced Excel features.
| File extensions | .xls |
| MIME type | application/vnd.ms-excel |
| Developer | Microsoft |
| First released | 1987 |
| Category | Spreadsheets |
| Open standard | No (proprietary) |
What opens XLS files
- Microsoft Excel (all versions)
- LibreOffice Calc
- Google Sheets (via import)
- Apple Numbers (via import)
Common conversions
Browse File Formats
Reference details for 53 file formats — extensions, MIME types, what opens each one, and how they convert.
7Z Archives ABW Documents AI Images AVIF Images AZW3 E-books BMP Images CSS Other CSV Spreadsheets DjVu E-books DOC Documents DOCX Documents EPS Images EPUB E-books FB2 E-books GIF Images GZ Archives HEIC Images HTML Documents ICO Images ISO Archives JPG Images JSON Other Keynote Presentations Markdown Documents MOBI E-books Numbers Spreadsheets ODP Presentations ODS Spreadsheets ODT Documents OTF Other Pages Documents PDF Documents PNG Images PPT Presentations PPTX Presentations PSD Images RAR Archives RAW Images RTF Documents SVG Images TAR Archives TeX / LaTeX Documents TIFF Images TSV Spreadsheets TTF Other TXT Documents WebP Images WOFF / WOFF2 Other WPD Documents XLS Spreadsheets XLSX Spreadsheets XML Documents ZIP Archives