What is the difference between XLS and XLSX format?

Are XLS and XLSX the same?

The File Format Difference Data is arranged in an XLS file as binary streams in the form of a compound file as described in [MS-XLS]. In contrast, an XLSX file is based on Office Open XML format that stores data in compressed XML files in ZIP format.

When did Excel change from XLS to XLSX?

XLS vs XLSX In the Microsoft Office 2007 release, Microsoft decided to change the default file format to a different format and adding and additional x for all their document extensions; for Excel, this ended up as XLSX.

Why XLS file is bigger than XLSX?

Bigger range of cells. In an XLS workbook, the row limit is 65,536 (216) and 256 columns (28) which corresponds to column IV. Now with xlsx workbooks (and xlsm), limits are 1,048,576 rows (220) and 16,384 columns (214) or the column XFD.

Can XLSX be converted to XLS?

If you have a spreadsheet program on your computer that can open XLSX files (i.e. any version since Excel 2007), the easiest way to convert XLSX to XLS is to use the “Save as” function.