Excel “External table is not in the expected format.”

Question

I\'m trying to read an Excel (xlsx) file using the code shown below. I get an \"External table is not in the expected format.\" error unless I have the file already open in

Answer 1

I have also seen this error when trying to use complex INDIRECT() formulas on the sheet that is being imported. I noticed this because this was the only difference between two workbooks where one was importing and the other wasn't. Both were 2007+ .XLSX files, and the 12.0 engine was installed.

I confirmed this was the issue by:

• Making a copy of the file (still had the issue, so it wasn't some save-as difference)
• Selecting all cells in the sheet with the Indirect formulas
• Pasting as Values only

and the error disappeared.