While working with Excel spreadsheets, you may at times encounter a situation where a file is shown as corrupted. In this article, we look at 6 common causes behind incidents of data corruption in MS Excel files.
In most offices, one cannot imagine a workday without using the MS Excel application. From financial data, reports, and projects to inventory details, payroll data, and contact numbers to employee records; a whole array of data gets stored in Excel spreadsheets. Since Excel is so ubiquitous and overall a very stable application, we rarely think about data corruption while working on the MS Excel application. However, Excel files do regularly get corrupted due to myriad reasons. Let’s look at the six most common causes of Excel file corruption in detail.
Incompatible VBA Code and Macros
One of the most prominent causes of Excel corruption involves incompatible VBA codes present in Excel applications and the use of macros that have a propensity to malfunction. Many professional Excel users love to use Macros and templates built with advanced code use. However such files may not open properly on another system when the receiver attempts to open them.
Viruses that Specifically Target Excel Files
Given Macros offer such powerful points of entry for viruses, Excel files have been a favourite target for virus authors for long. In fact, there have been cases where viruses have been introduced through formula too. Viruses designed to specifically attack Excel files can be tricky. Some of them tend to use attributes offered by the Excel application to corrupt the data files. In some cases, they save the code in hidden pages and include infected files in the autorun catalogue.
Excel Crashes due to Bugs and Version Issues
At times the Excel application can crash due to version compatibility issues with the file you are running. In some cases, add-ons can introduce bugs that can lead to incidents of data corruption.
DDE Related Errors
In older versions of Excel applications, files would be shown as corrupted due to DDE errors. They relate to errors that were caused when the character limit for path and filename was breached.
Disk Errors and Related Hardware Issues
The storage media that you use to store Excel file can itself contribute to the corruption of Excel files. For example, it is common for bad sectors to crop up in USB drives which we may use to store Excel files for easy access. However, when the removable drive gets corrupted, you may not be able to normally access the contents of Excel files present on it.
Errors Introduced During Data Transfer
At times when you download an Excel file over the Internet, you may end up with a corrupted data file. Much of this can be attributed to issues with an internet connection or web server where the data file was stored.
Final Thoughts
While there is very little chance that you can predict an upcoming incident of data corruption in Excel files, you can surely plan to recover the valuable data. Investing in the DataNumen Excel Repair application will allow you to repair Excel files and recover data from compromised Excel files in an effortless manner. This versatile tool sports a Batch recovery mode and can extract every element present in the messed up Excel files like array formulas and custom formats.
