Excel: Difference between XLSX, XLSM and XLSB
Question by Guest | Last update on 2021-06-28 | Created on 2015-10-22
Finally, I have switched to a newer version of Excel (better late than never) and at the same time, I was very surprised about what Microsoft has introduced there: a variety of new file formats.
At first glance, I noticed some new file formats with the extensions XLSX, XLSM and XLSB. Can anyone explain briefly what is going on with these formats and what the difference between each format is?
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XLSX and XLSM are the successors of the old XLS format. While the old XLS format has stored the data binary, XLSX and XLSM are internally using the XML format (Extensible Markup Language).
The difference between XLSX and XLSM is that XLSX does not contain macros and in contract XLSM does. So, if you do not want to worry about any security settings, you can just choose the XLXS format for your spreadsheet. Macros are simply not stored when using the XLXS format.
The XLSB format includes a binary workbook and thus is similar to the old BIFF format of the XLS files. The XLSB files have the advantage that they are smaller and can be processed and opened more quickly compared to the XML based formats XLSX and XLSM. Therefore, they are always a good choice when comprehensive data is available, if complex calculations must be calculated or if there are other limitations of the XML format.
By the way, you can open the XLXS and XLSM files in an archive program such as 7-Zip. Then you see the contained XML files.
Last update on 2021-06-28 | Created on 2015-10-22