Very Useful & Innovative Excel Tip : Using Your Own File Ext

PRAVEEN KUMAR (MBA (Finance) B.Com.(P))   (3443 Points)

27 June 2009  

 

 
Summary:
Don't like the workbook file extensions used by Excel?

You can specify your own extensions,

How ? Lets know it .
As you may know By default, versions of Excel prior to Excel 2007 use an XLS extension for all workbook files and Excel 2007 uses XLSX or XLSM, depending on whether the workbook contains macros or not. If you don't want to use the default file extensions for a workbook you are saving, you can pick something different. (You may want to use a different extension if you are trying to hide the fact that the file is an Excel workbook.)

If you try to use a different file name extension by including it when you save the file, Excel still appends the XLS extension. For instance, if you explicitly save a file as MyFile.praveen, Excel will still save it as MyFile.praveen.xls.

If you don't want Excel to do this, then simply enclose your file name in quotes when you save under a new name. Thus, you would use the name "MyFile.praveen" (with the quotes) and that is the file name which Excel will use.

In addition, if you save a workbook with a different extension (not one of the defaults used by Excel), then Excel won't show the workbook by default when you use the Open command. To see all your varied-extension files, you need to follow these steps:

Displays the Open dialog box.
In the File Name field, enter an asterisk, period, and your desired extension. For instance, you could enter "*.praveen" (without the quotes).
Press Enter.
The desired files should be listed in the directory.
Select the file you want to open.
Click on Open.