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

This can occur when the workbook is password-protected. There are some workarounds to remove this protection but most of the examples you'll find online are outdated. Either way, the simple solution is to unprotect the workbook manually, otherwise use something like OpenXML to remove the protection programmatically.