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I'm using the TransferSpreadsheet command to export Access queries to an Excel file in a folder. I realize I can specify a file name (with extension) for it to create, but I decided to experiment and left out a file name in the destination path. The result was an Excel file with the query name saved as a .xlsb file.

I'd never heard of this, but it opened fine and after research I found that it is a more compact, quicker to open/save/close than traditional .xls. Great! These exported Excel files will be opened by potentially 20-25 users, each of whom has one of Excel 03, 07, or 10. For flexibility's sake, I would prefer to export the query without defining a file name.

Is .xlsb compatible with all of these? If so, is there any reason to not use this format? Can the end user format, modify, or otherwise tinker with a .xlsb file as though it was .xls?

Trevor D
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  • See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7821632/in-which-case-should-we-use-the-xlsm-or-the-xlsb-format – Fionnuala Jan 08 '14 at 15:36
  • I read through that but somehow missed `both formats support exactly the same feature set`. I saw a lot of talk about the ribbon--does this mean .xlsb limits the usability of the ribbons? (Home, Page Layout, Data, Review, etc.) – Trevor D Jan 08 '14 at 15:40
  • It means .xlsb is only available since 2007 and can only be opened without any problems in 2007 or better. You might like to look at compatibility packs https://support.microsoft.com/kb/924074 – Fionnuala Jan 08 '14 at 15:51

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.xlsb was introduced in excel 2007 alongside .xlsx and .xlsm. All three formats use the OPC standard and are conceptually similar (whereas .xls, while also a binary format, is much different -- for example, it uses an OLE container format rather than zip)

.xlsb is not compatible with .xls, and AFAICT there are no open source tools that can write XLSB. The j tool (available on node npm at https://npmjs.org/package/j) appears to parse XLSB. If you expect others to use their own tools (not excel) then you are better off sticking with XLS. However, if Excel is part of the workflow, then XLSB is a compelling option

SheetJS
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