View workbooks by using Excel Viewer

Microsoft Excel Viewer allows you to open, view, work with, or print a workbook on a computer that does not have Microsoft Excel installed. Excel Viewer is also useful when you distribute a workbook to people who do not have Excel installed.

You can download and install Excel Viewer free of charge from the Microsoft Office Online Downloads page.

Note: The current version of Excel Viewer is the replacement for Excel Viewer 2003 and earlier versions of Excel Viewer.

Using Excel Viewer

After downloading and installing Excel Viewer, you can use it to:

• Open a workbook    In Excel Viewer, you can open files that are created in Microsoft Excel 2010, Microsoft Office Excel 2007, Microsoft Office Excel 2003, Excel for Windows (versions 95 and later), and Microsoft Excel for the Macintosh (versions 2.2 and later). Excel Viewer can open these Excel file formats: .xlsx, .xlsm, .xlsb, .xltx, .xltm, .xls, .xlt, .xlm, and .xlw. Even though you can open macro-enabled files (.xlsm, .xltm, and .xlm), you will not be able to run macros. You cannot open Excel chart files (.xlc), Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) files (.mht, .mhtml, .htm, and .html), or comma delimited text (CSV) files (.csv).

  Note: Although you can open Excel 2010 files, Excel 2010 specific features cannot be displayed in Excel Viewer. However, you do not have to download the Excel Viewer to view Excel 2010 files. You can use Excel Online available through Windows OneDrive or Excel Web App deployed as part of a Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 or Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 installation. Excel Online and Excel Web App can view, edit and print Excel files. For more information, see Work with worksheet data in OneDrive or Using Office Web Apps in SharePoint.

• View a worksheet    You can scroll to view the different parts of a worksheet, and you can switch to another worksheet. You can also magnify or reduce the display and minimize the Ribbon.

• Work with the data    You can scroll through worksheet data, select it, and search for it. You can also copy the data to another program. However, without Excel installed, you won't be able to edit the data and save any changes that you make.

• Print a worksheet    You can specify the worksheet data that you want to print and set print options to print the data just as you would in Excel.

For more information about using Excel Viewer, click the Help button, and then click Microsoft Office Excel Viewer Help, or press F1.

Tip: Microsoft Office Excel Viewer Help is available only when you are connected to the Internet. If you plan to work offline, you may want to print the article. In the See Also section of this article, click Microsoft Office Excel Viewer Help. Click Printer-Friendly Version, and then click Show All (top right) to expand all of the article sections. To print the article, press CTRL+P.

Distributing Excel Viewer to others

When you send a workbook in an e-mail message as an attachment to people who do not have Excel installed, you can include a pointer to the Excel Viewer download page on Office Online Downloads.

You can also distribute Excel Viewer along with your workbooks. For more information about distributing Excel Viewer, click MICROSOFT SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS in the See Also section of this article.