The Problem:
Trying to open CSV file that my app had generated kept causing the following message to appear in Excel:
Excel has detected that ‘balhblah.csv’ is an SYLK file, but cannot load it. Either the file has error or it is not a SYLK file format. Click OK to try to open the file in a different format’ , you may also get the message SYLK: File format is not valid
The solution:
After many hours of pulling my hair out trying to work it out I discovered that if you make the first letters “ID” of a text file Excel incorrectly assumes you are trying to open an SYLK file (whatever one of those is!).
Hope that helps!
PS Microsoft have a page on this now… http://support2.microsoft.com/kb/323626
Geoffrey Hashman
I ran into this problem when creating a CSV file with the requirement that columns 1-2 of the first record – representing the first cell of the spreadsheet must contain uppercase “ID”.
I kept getting “Unable to load SYLK file…” Ichanged that to “Id” – but that was not acceptable to the program into which this file was input.
For the moment I have got around it by setting up the field as “ ID “ and seeing whther the next program is rigidly expecting :ID” in cols 1-2, or is it a “free-format field which allows for “ID” as floating characters.
One can only hope and pray!!!
Ishu
waooo thanks for saving…!
funcsol
still helping!
Nenad
Great job! TNX!
Kevin
Still working
Antonio
good, still helping… but after six years Microsoft has not yet solved the bug ?
AlunR
Microsoft will tell you it’s a feature 🙂
Andrew
Still helping!
Abhinav
save my day..thanks
Eric Blankenstein
Thank you Alun for sharring this info – it has saved me pulling my hair and spending many hours to figure this out….
Thank you and bless you for sharring this info.
Wesley
> 700 days later his post is still helping. Many thanks for saving me many hours of frustration.
Wes
aad
10/20/2016 and it is still helping!!!
Reuben
Still Helping
Deckard
Still helping at 16 Feb 2017… I really have no words about this Microsoft Excel’s abomination.
Rich
24th Feb 2017, still helping
jamie-b
Still helping 24th March 2017
strumpels
april 7 2017
still helping
Shuting
Still helping 20 Avril 2017
MANU
Still helping at 25 APR 2017… 😀
Hasan
Still helping at May 31, 2017
Wan
Still helping in 15 June 2017..yihaaa
chris
july 18 2017!!!
Dave
Still Helping
Houlie
Still helping
Alex
Still Helping!
Aaron
Still helping!
John
7th September 2017!
Martins Savickis
3017 Still helping
Daniel Beltrami
Still helping at 03 Feb 2018
Cichy
Still helping (16 March 2018) 😀
Marco
Still helping
Joerg
March 2018 … still helping
QA Tester
April 2018 – still helping.
Thanks 🙂
hrs
Still helping… 26 Apr, 2018
Moses
Still helping in May 2018
Julia
June as well! It continues haha
RT
Still Helping!!! November 27, 2018
AlunR
I’m guessing you mean September 🙂
Zak Stephens
Still helping, November 13, 2018.
Jean
Still Helping Jan. 2019 !
Luis
23rd Oct 2017, Still helping.
Enric
Still helping, mates! thanks
Ramon
METOO! 🙂
Still helping. Thanks
Cedric
Still helping, Thanks a lot !!!
Mike
Still helping today July 13th 2018
Chuck
Still helping at of Aug 13 2018. Amazing that MS has gone so long without addressing a basic bug.
psdcc
Still helping
Seminoleslarry
August 10/2017 and still helping!
Vijay Kumar
Still Helping
S
Still helping. 6 years later.
Dolorum
Still helping
Armaan Sandhu
Haha still helping in 2018!! 🙂
Saul Weighney
Still helping!!
John
Still helping – 29 August 2018
Thank you!
Richard Graham
And now still Helping
Alun
Glad to still be of help!
Linda
saved me today (7/18/18)
Zid Zidane
The way to fix this for a programmer is to put the apostrophe character (’) as the first character of the CSV file. Then when Excel opens it, it won’t say, “Error: its a SYLK file gone bad”.
Another grateful user :)
Thanks.
Jaspreet
Put an apostrophe at the beginning of the first field and this irritating error goes away
jojo
Another code warrior salutes you!
Tushar
Thanks ! it helped..
David
refering to #5 above, the solution is not for the programmer or enyone else in the world to avoid using the characters ID in a CSV header. The solution is for Microsoft the remove such a stupid hard-coded logic.
Alun
Looking at the MS knowledge base this should be fixed in the most recent versions of excel
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323626
Michael
It’s not.
Deckard
Still at 16 Feb 2017, it’s not.
Creighton
Still at 25 Jan 2018, it’s not.
Jpfischbein
Still at 26 April 2018, it’s not.
MT KMan
Still not fixed as of today. Just ran into this exporting to Excel from a sql proc…a random piece of dumb luck I named the files starting with “ID”.
AlunR
Not dumb at all! Lots of frameworks WANT you to name the key ID!!
khandu
i cant save excel file in .csv format error you cant save multiple sheet in format
how to save
plz reply me.
i cant save excel file in .csv format error you cant save multiple sheet in format
how to save
plz reply me.
Alun Rowe
Hi Khandu
You can’t save a multi-sheet excel file as a CSV because csv’s don’t support multiple pages. Simply save each worksheet as a desperate CSV and name them in a sensible way for the other person to import e.g. mydata_sheet1.csv, mydata_sheet2.csv and so on
Good luck!
Alun
ALEX
THANK YOU , THANK YOU , THANK YOU
Dennis
Thanks!! Still useful!
Alun
Wow, 2 years and a bit on and it’s still proving useful! Glad to have helped
Mitch
This didn’t help me for my requirements…
What did help was this:
—Save file as a .csv and close it.
—Right click on the .csv file and Open with>Notepad
—Go to File>Save As
—Under Ecoding: select UTF-8
—Click Save
Pete
Thanks – this fixed it for me!
Ronnie
This helped me as well. Thank you!
Julia
Same here — thanks!
Chris_M
Thank you Mitch. Life saver. And thank you Alun for starting the whole topic.
Jewfin
HELL YEAH!!! Thanks.
Frustrated
Helped again, thanks
Jeff
Yup, still helping.
Jay
Thanks!
F
Thank you!
Andrew N
Still a big help. Keep this alive (Incase you were thinking that no one is using this anymore)
Raf
received the error message during import of a custom csv file about 3 minutes ago.
googled it and this article resolved it in less than 60 secs.
thanks!!!!
Paul
And there was me thinking it was my programming skills that sucked. Microsoft, as usual. Pfft. Suckers.
On a serious note, thanks for the tip. I dread to think how many circles I would have went round if I didn’t discover it.
Gary
Changing ID to lower case id should also fix the problem.
Joel Weiner
We had to change from upper to lowercase to when saving from xlsx to csv. Other wise we would get the error.
AlunR
That’s useful to know! Thanks
Jo
Thank you – this helped me out as well!
Brian Patterson
You are the best ! Thank you!!!!
Jay
Thank God for Google that found this.. I was pulling my hair out on this!
Bill
Thank you!!!! You saved me much frustration.
Abu Alam
You saved my day. Lot of thanks. I have a csv file that has a column with header=“ID”. It was giving me SYLK error. But once I changed it to “Id”, it worked like magic.
Tatiana
Just ran into this problem. I have cell A1 of each of my CSV files as “ID”. Would’ve never figured this out on my own. Glad this post is still available here after so many years. Thank you so much for sharing. Cheers!
Alun
Glad to still be of help
Damien
Thank you !
Laurence
I’m just thinking…thank GOD for the Internet!
Jay
Just another drive by thank you. This is more helpful than the offical MS help page on this topic.
Vinutha
GOD , Would have never figured out this.. wasted one whole day.
Hish
Thanks mate.
Sebastian
Thanks for saving me hours of investigating.
The Moog
I want to have your babies. I love you. Thanks
Homer
Let’s us know how that works out! Thanks!
Hamish
It’s the “The file you are trying to open, ‘x.csv’ is in a different format than specified by the extension…” that gets me.
Thanks for preventing me going blind looking for obscure and non-existent unprintable characters…
David Willis
Wow. I never would have guessed that was the issue. I changed the first cell from “ID” to “dbID” and now the error is gone. lol
Thanks!
Dave
This is amazing. Thanks!
Ajay
This is awesome help!
Ella
Thanks a lot!
Steph
Thank you!
Piotr
thank you, thank you, thank you!
Simi
wow Thanks! still not fixed I see. and still helping…………
Joost Carpentier
Thank you!
Andy
Thank you so much. Found this and fixed the error.
Maria
WOW!!!! Awesome! Thank you very much for this post!
Gunnar
Aargh! Thanks a lot – just wish I had seen your post a couple of hours earlier 😉
Jen G
Wow!, thanks for your post! That helped so much!
Michael
D’oh!; thanks for the post. Very helpful
MarkW
Thanks for taking away the pain – wish I’d checked your site YEARS ago. My previous solution was opening in Open Office then saving as .xls LOL
Jon Rachiele
Omg — Thank You so much
Rolando
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
scaevola
Thanks man!
Emeline
Merci !!!!!! Thank you !!!!! You just saved the day !
Hui Sheng
Thanks a lot!
A thankful Python newbie
Thank you so much for that info! Even though I have spent a few hours pulling my hair – I would never have arrived at that conclusion without your input.
Sam
Thanks a bunch!
This still occurs in Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 (version 14.0.7173.5000), although Microsoft doesn’t admit it on their KB support page.
Nicholas Richardson
I dont know what is more funny, the solution or how many csv files must begin with “ID”. Thanks for post.
Andy T
Thanks – your post came up in a google and most helpful. I am in the process of moving to Softmaker Office 2016 having previously used MS Office 2003. When moving back and forth I hit this problem and assumed incorrectly it was Softmaker trouble. Yes my database has ID for the first field (column) and hits this problem.
adi
thank you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
thank you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
thank you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
thank you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
you are the best
worked
David
Running Excel 2016 in the year 2017 and this is still a problem that you helped me solve! Thank you!
Hamidul Islam
thank’s bro , i just spend my 4 hours into this .
AlunR
This article is now 5 years old and it’s still helping! Amazed MS haven’t fixed it but the occasional gift from my Amazon gift list and a few affiliate fees for adverts cover off the over 1200 visitors per month just to read this article!
RLU
Wow – I wasted 3 hours on this problem – As soon as I looked it up (finally – dumb of me to wait) your fix came up!
nah
1st hit on google search, still an issue after all this time?
Prashant Ganpat Dhuri
Thanks buddy. You saved a ton of time…
Jeff G
Thank you for sharing this. I was so confused by the error and would have spend countless hours on the same issue!
Shahabaz
Still Helping
From Argentina with Love
Thanks this helped me too, March 31st, 2017
Kirkwood Paul Donavin
Thank you so much for pulling your hair out for us!
Tom
Thanks … would never have figured that out!!!
Phil
Another happy camper….I would never have worked that out myself
…A thousand thanks mate !!!! 🙂
Ed Flood
Still helping, thanks a million!
joshelui
I solved this issue with:
Application.DisplayAlerts = False
Workbooks.Open Filename:=path, Local:=True
Application.DisplayAlerts = True
Where ‘path’ is a string variable with the path where the file is.
Obviously this is a VBA solution.
I hope this help you.
AlunR
Thanks! VBA Solution shared!!
Iguan
Nice!
Maria M.
Priceless information! This thread will live on as you keep saving lives out there in MS World. Thank you!!!!
David
Still helping 🙂
Beach
Yep.
David
And again today!
Costi A
Still useful. Thanks man.
BR/ Costi A.
Jackie
OMG, thank you for saving me so much time.
Jeff Langlois
You sir, are a gentleman and a scholar.
This resolved my issue so quickly!
Well done.
Anton
What a random error, but it also just happened to me !
Is there anything we can do about it ?
My CSV file needs to have “ID” as the first element.
There is no way around it.
AlunR
Why do you need ID as the first field? If you are outputting to Excel then you can choose anything as your output format. If you need to then send it on from there it you could then rename it once it is in the system or output it using a macro which renames the first column.
Alternatively make ID the last column? most imports should sort it out for you?
Eric
Aug 14, 2017 and still helping!
San
Aug 29, 2017 and still helping!
Mark
Wow, years later and this is still awesome. Thanks for the heads-up!
Mousumi
Thank you so much for sharing this info.Very useful.
SRamu
Still helping. Thank you so much for this info.
James
We have discovered if CSV is changed to UTF-8, the SYLK problem disapears (without change ID to Id)
PongoDog
OMG ! How much time potentially this has saved me. THANK YOU for posting this information.
renat
Thank you for the information.
For everyone who needs a workaround:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29012344/opening-csv-file
Abdul Hadi N
Thank u
Mike
AMAZING! Saved me 8 hours of hair pulling. Damn excel!! THANKS!!!
Mohamed
So my very first cell was the state Idaho, what are the odds?
Paul
stiiiiilll helping
Another grateful user!
Still Helping!
And Another!
Ha Ha!! Still helping. I would never have worked that out!
Nicola
Thanks was very useful
Dan Williams
Still helping!
Cheers!
random it guy
helpful defusing a panicked exec
Amjad
Trust me still helping
Brian Spolarich
This is the gift that keeps on giving
rajen
omg, thanks!
M Miller
Such a simple solution for such an annoying issue. THANK YOU!
dylanjharris
STILL HELPING! THANKS ALL
WHY IS THIS STILL AN ISSUE AFTER 4 YEARS?!
Mark
Thank you for the quick fix!
Stephanie
STILL HELPING after SIX years!!!!!! Thank you 🙂
Peter
Another two thumbs up!!
Daniela
Still Helping! Thanks!
Bobby
Still helping. Thanks!
Nicolas
Still Helping! Thanks!
Dave
Still Helping!
Joseph
Still helping! 🙂 Thank you.
AlyShutter
Yep still helping =D 2018! Thank you!
Lieutenant Geyser
Haha this is amazing. Thank you for this.
Cees
Best post ever 😉 Saving me a bunch of time
Steve Rawlinson
Still Helping! Thank you.
Joe
Well done Alun. Magic internet
rauf
Thanks a lot
Mike
This is still helping as of February 15, 2018 – four years later. Microsoft has disabled the solution page listed above. Users now get the Microsoft version of the 404 File Not Found error, so can anyone explain WHY Excel does this? Or has anyone found the new link to Microsoft’s explanation?
Celia
Thanks a bunch! That prevented me from suicide 🙂
DH
Still helping
Richartd Noakes
Come on MS! This is a tiny task to fix – do it now!
Far too much monkey see, monkey do. Too clever by half! Are you aware that many people import csv files where the first cell contains ID? And they want them to be csv, nothing else.
Nikhil Bhansi
24th Feb 2018 | Still Helping
Robby
26 Feb 2018 – same issue, sti9ll inresolved. Original poster’s work much appreciated
STAN
Thank you very much.
AQ
Thank you
Mitisha
Still helping
Doug
This is pathetic. Thanks to OP. Pulling my hair out trying to analyze data for my master’s thesis. I don’t have words for how angry I am at Microsoft right now.
Still helping.
Stuart
Still helping March 2018!
Alex Claudio
This is still helping! April 2018!
Tim
Still helping 29th March 18.
6 years later and Microsoft still can’t be bothered to fix it. Amazing.
Owen
Still Helping April 18
David
Another one saved April 2018 from this, frankly, beyond pointless “feature”.
Thank you very much!
mdcclxv
Thank you!!!! U da man!
Aromal
Thanks Buddy 🙂
Aman
I found another option.no need to change the column heading order title. Just open a new excel and than open the file which you would like to open (SYLK format file), it will open this time.
Hope this works for you guys as well.
José Sanches
Thank you! Still help !
Jsanches
José Sanches
Thank you!
Niborg
Still helping!!!!
Thanks!!
Dhawal
18th April 2018…
Still helping!!!
Thanks a ton, Alun!!
Just a feedback that I am not able to open MS link given though.
Gav Massingham
I mean. Just wow Microsoft. Because no one ever wants the first column of their CSV file to be “ID” do they?
Keren
Thanks! Another person saved hours of trouble by this.
Stacey Britton
So glad to find this, thanks!
-jm
day 2,304 and still helping!
Jem Shaw
Aaaaaand solved!
You rock.
“Get Bill Gates in here!”
jamie
I literally love you
Francois Janoras
9th May 2018
… and still helping!
Daniel
Still Helping! Thank you
CK
Saved the day 6 years later!
MT
Still Helping!!, May 2018
Sara
Oh my goodness… This solution saved me hours. Thanks!
Thomas
Lifesaver
melon
thanks heaps for this.
Niharika
Thanks a ton. Saved lot of time.
Hancel
This answer will remain Gold for decades to come 😀
Thank you so much
Aparna
Thank you.
God saved the world.
You saved my day.
Larry Nee
I found this abomination again today. Can’t wait to switch off of M$ crap in a year.
AC
Perfect!! HUGE HELP – thanks!
Sulcalibur
Just had this problem, you were the first result in Google, lol. Cheers buddy!
Hanna
Thumbs up!
Kathy
Still Helping! THANKS!!!
Josh Stauffer
I’m glad your post came up first in the SERP’s. You saved me from pulling my own hair. 🙂
Kiya Sharma
Thanks Dude,
You don’t know how how much time of mine you’ve saved.
GBU !! xD
edel macias
Thanks you for the info!
Still helping haha
Much spam, such helpful
Archana
Thanks for the info!
Still helping
Amir
Thank You. It is help us 😉 fckng excel 😉
Lara Jain
thanks a lot!!!It worked!!! in 2018 🙂
asd
thanks
John
This post saved the day. It’s unbelievable that this hasn’t been fixed yet.
AlunR
I think Microsoft would describe it as a feature not a bug…
jamie
Thanks for this so many years later!
I am quite certain that I told Excel that I was looking for text files (not slky or skly or ksly or Excel or any other type of file). Yes, I chose from a selection that Excel presented me with. I knew I wanted txt files… I chose a text file… even had a .txt extenstion… I told Excel this after it asked me… and wha??? It wants to tell me it’s a slksdksyr file?
How awful.
If Microsoft has any hand in building the AI that is suppose to rule the world one day, at least we now know we can just write “ID” on the bullets we shoot at the droids that come to farm us. They will have no defense.
AlunR
Just change the first line of your address and your first name to ID.
They’ll never know who you are or where you live!
Leslie
NEWEST issue: what if the file already was saved and I am trying to open it when I get this SYLK error?
I can’t get to the data to view it and fix it 🙁
AlunR
Off the top of my head you could try opening it in a proper text editor like Sublime?
Or open a new sheet and open it as a datasource?
Bern Almazan
Big help. Thanks a lot.
Bern
paddy
Highlight of my weekend. Many thanks.
EC
Love it
Ravish
You save my day, Thanks you !!
Mihai
wow, I almost can’t believe the ID stuff…saved my day too. Thanks!
:)
Thank you sir. You are a GOD!
Joachim David
It helps again, yay!
Connie
OMG… Thanks so much!
Steve
What Connie says!
Zoe
September 2018 …. still helping
I edited the csv in Notepad and changed the header row to have double quotes around all the headings, and it fixed the issue for my file. The quotes are not displayed when loaded in Excel and no warnings. Winning!
i.e.
“ID”,”Name”,”Email”
AlunR
Yep, that’s another great way to fix the issue. Adding quotes means it’s just treated as a string and no preprocessing takes place. But like when people give you datasets with columns that have names with sql keywords like Select, from, where etc
Ian
Still helping…saved me many hours of troubleshooting…
Satyendra Mishra
Thanks a lot, you saved me many hours of troubleshooting.
Mohammad Khan
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
shrinivas
thanks
Pierre Chesnier
Can someone try to OPEN A SECOND TIME the file, after Excel gives you errors and opens a blank file ?
Just, keep the file (excel) open and double clic the file again. What happens there ?
Pierre C.
NEVER GIVE UP
Pierre Chesnier
for me it works, excel opens the file and displays its content
izi
Well, it is 11.14.2018 and I just encountered the same issue! Oy vey!
Cesar Aquino
Thank you a lot!!!
Andriy
thanks!
newoutlaw
Just save the file as a Unicode .txt file. Then rename it to csv and Bob’s your uncle.
Sivasakthi Sivagnanam
Thank you for everyone who honed into the issue being first cell cannot have text starting with “ID”. cheers folks.
Kenneth Jims Quezon
Still helping! March 14, 2019
James
Still helping! March 19, 2019
Heidi
still helping!!!
Dave Khan
This saved me. Fortunately, in my case, the use of “ID” as the first two characters in the CSV file was not a rigid requirement; I was able to change it a bit to get around the problem. But I’d have never known what the problem was without this post.
Papa Stauth
Energizer Bunny “Still helping” …
Jesse Hefter
Unbelievably helpful. All I had to so was place a Response.Write(“‘”); at the beginning of the file. Thanks so much!
Jason Woolf
I’ve copied Dave Khan’s Reply above as its a simple case of “Same Here”!
This saved me. Fortunately, in my case, the use of “ID” as the first two characters in the CSV file was not a rigid requirement; I was able to change it a bit to get around the problem. But I’d have never known what the problem was without this post.
Many Many Thanks for posting the solution
Milz
STILL HELPING “2019”+
Jennifer L.
STILL helping June 1, 2019! For real!
Also the knowledge base link referenced seems to now be broken :(. Thanks, Microsoft!
Zernk
This is freaking insane! WTF is wrong with M$? This problem is so 1980’s. Thanks so much for the solution!
Janvhi Kapoor
Thanks a lot dear ,it worked.
Ankita Oberoi
Thanks a lot man ,it really worked.
Pernille
Just another happy user of this brilliant finding!
Thanks for putting it out there 🙂
Divya Das
Very nice site,keep on posting.
Sophie Sharma
Thanks for sharing such a nice post,keep up the good work.
Sophie Sharma
It really worked for me,keep up the good work.
Sophie Sharma
It really worked for me,keep up the good work.