Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, and 2013. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Setting a Default File Format.

Setting a Default File Format

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated January 3, 2019)

2

Normally, Excel saves your worksheets in the workbook format that is appropriate for the version of the software you are using. This means that your worksheets are stored in a peculiar way that is understood by your version of Excel, but may not be understood by other programs—including earlier versions of Excel.

If you do a lot of work with people who use other versions of Excel or who use a different spreadsheet program, you may want to specify a different default file format for your files. Excel makes this easy; just follow these steps:

  1. Display the Excel Options dialog box. (In Excel 2007 click the Office button and then click Excel Options. In Excel 2010 and Excel 2013 display the File tab of the ribbon and then click Options.)
  2. Click the Save option at the left side of the dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

    3. Figure 1. The Save option of the Excel Options dialog box.

  3. Use the Save Files In This Format drop-down list to select a default file format.
  4. Click OK.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (10480) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, and 2013. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Setting a Default File Format.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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What is 9 - 8?

2015-12-05 13:14:52

Joseph Bays

I bought a new laptop with Windows 10 OS. When I tried to save Excel 2003, I could not find a way to save it.

2015-06-06 05:35:18

Charles

Hello.

Lately I have been generating my pivot tables and when I extract the results onto a new sheet, the first column is set as a date format. I expected tit to be "General"

Can anyone shed any light on why this happens and how do I fix this.

Thank you

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