Extract text from Excel spreadsheets (_XLS)
To convert _XLS spreadsheets to another format, you need Microsoft Excel or other Spreadsheet software.
To convert other file formats to the "Legacy Spreadsheet File" file type, you need software like Microsoft Excel or a similar tool.
The ._XLS file usually represents a manually renamed legacy Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. However, in modern computing, it is most frequently encountered as an AppleDouble resource fork created by macOS. When a Mac user copies a standard XLS file to a FAT32 or exFAT external drive, macOS creates a hidden companion file starting with ._ to store extended file attributes.
To read actual spreadsheet data, users typically rely on Microsoft Excel or open-source alternatives like LibreOffice Calc.
Working with legacy XLS formats presents major disadvantages. The outdated Binary Interchange File Format (BIFF) is proprietary, prone to corruption, and poses significant security risks from embedded macro viruses. Furthermore, if the file is an AppleDouble resource fork, it usually weighs around 4KB and contains absolutely zero spreadsheet data, causing extreme frustration for Windows users who attempt to open it and face error messages.
We highly recommend converting genuine spreadsheet data to XLSX for modern XML-based efficiency and security, CSV for pure universal data extraction, or PDF for static viewing and printing.
This file format is notoriously difficult to process because standard online converters crash when attempting to parse the complex, undocumented old binary structure or when fed empty Mac metadata files. Our deep-scan analysis detects if the file contains actual embedded spreadsheet data or if it is merely an unsupported resource fork.
Convert.Guru analyzes your _XLS file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert _XLS file to XLS, XLSX, XLSM, XLSB, ODS, CSV, TSV, TAB, DIF, SLK, WK1 or WK3, you can use Microsoft Excel or similar software from the "Legacy Spreadsheet Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert WQ1, XLSM, NOTES, QPW, WK3, WB2, WKS, XLSB, 123, XLS, WB1 or XLSX files to _XLS, try Microsoft Excel or another comparable tool in the "Legacy Spreadsheet Storage" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our _XLS converter.