topic Re: Unable to open xls file in SAS Programming

Unable to open xls file

srinivasa_attot — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 06:57:54 GMT

Hi,

We are unable to open an .xls file generated by a SAS program on a local desktop. However, the same program works correctly when generating an .xlsx file.

Error message: “We found a problem with some content in <filename.xls>.”

This issue started occurring after upgrading to SAS 9.4 M8. The same functionality was working fine in SAS 9.4 M7.

Note: There are no special characters in the file.

Statement:
proc export data=sample outfile=/home/raju/filename.xls" dbms=xls
replace;
run;

Regards,
Srinivas

Re: Unable to open xls file

sbxkoenk — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 09:35:49 GMT

Are you running into this?

Problem Note 40383: An unreadable content error occurs when you open Microsoft Excel files that were created by a 64-bit Excel driver
https://support.sas.com/kb/40/383.html

BR, Koen

Re: Unable to open xls file

PaigeMiller — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 11:01:32 GMT

@srinivasa_attot wrote:

Statement:
proc export data=sample outfile=/home/raju/filename.xls" dbms=xls
replace;
run;

Is this a typographical error? You need a double quote after outfile= to match the double-quote at the end of the file name.

Re: Unable to open xls file

srinivasa_attot — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 11:21:12 GMT

It's a typo error.

Re: Unable to open xls file

srinivasa_attot — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 11:24:27 GMT

I tried the article, but it did not help.

Re: Unable to open xls file

Ksharp — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 07:57:51 GMT

Did you try EXCEL engine ?

proc export data=sample outfile=/home/raju/filename.xls" dbms=excel
replace;
run;

or XLSX engine :
proc export data=sample outfile=/home/raju/filename.xls" dbms=xlsx
replace;
run;

Re: Unable to open xls file

srinivasa_attot — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 09:56:41 GMT

DBMS=EXCEL gave an error as " DBMS TYPE EXCEL IS NOT VALID PROMPT"

Re: Unable to open xls file

Tom — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 14:56:55 GMT

What exactly is generating that error message? Because it sounds like something that would be generated by a program that was trying to READ the file. Please share you SAS log so we can see the exact error.

Also do you really need to create the ancient XLS format? Try switching to the XLSX format and see if that works better for you.

proc export data=sample
  dbms=xlsx
  outfile="/home/raju/filename.xlsx" replace
;
run;

Re: Unable to open xls file

BillyVelasq — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 22:23:28 GMT

Hi,

We are unable to open an .xls file generated by a SAS program on a local desktop. However, the same program works correctly when generating an .xlsx file.

Error message: “We found a problem with some content in <filename.xls>.”

This issue started occurring after upgrading to SAS 9.4 M8. The same functionality was working fine in SAS 9.4 M7.

Note: There are no special characters in the file.

Statement:
proc export data=sample outfile=/home/raju/filename.xls" dbms=xlssite
replace;
run;

Regards,
Srinivas

I've run into similar issues before where the problem wasn't actually SAS but the Excel file itself. In a couple of cases the file had an .xls extension even though it wasn't a valid Excel workbook anymore. Opening the file directly in Excel and then saving it as a fresh workbook solved the issue. It might be worth checking whether the file opens normally outside of SAS before spending too much time troubleshooting the code.

Re: Unable to open xls file

Tom — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 14:23:35 GMT

Usually the problem with reading an Excel file created by SAS is caused by SAS not actually putting any information into the file. Make sure that the step that actually writes to the XLS file has written at least one observation with at least one variable.

Also XLS files have smaller limits on number of rows (observations) and columns (variables) than modern XLSX files allow. Perhaps your data exceeds one or both of those limits.