Why was my .xls file rejected?

Because the file inside is not a real Excel workbook. Some systems export HTML or plain text with an .xls extension. Open it in Excel, choose Save As, pick Excel Workbook (.xlsx), and upload that version instead.

Do I have to convert XLS to XLSX before sharing?

No. Genuine XLS files preview directly, with every sheet as a tab. Convert only if the upload tells you the file isn't a supported Office document.

Will dates and amounts look right?

Cells are shown as the formatted text the workbook stores, so dates, percentages and currency keep their number format in most files. Nothing is recalculated: you see the values saved in the file.

Can my client open an XLS file on a phone?

Yes. The link opens in any mobile browser. Wide sheets scroll sideways and there is a fullscreen button for reading long reports on a small screen.

XLS viewer

Open old XLS filesin your browser

XLS is the binary spreadsheet format of Excel 97 to 2003. It is still what many accounting packages, ERP systems, government portals and bank statement downloads produce, which is how people end up holding an .xls with nothing modern that opens it cleanly. Current Excel drops it into Compatibility Mode, Google Sheets wants to convert it into a copy, and many phones simply refuse it. Upload it here instead: we read the legacy format directly and show each sheet as a table, so the file you were sent is the file your reader sees.

Drop your file here

Drop several at once and they become one album link

Files up to 250 MB free

Free: every feature, 20 links, up to 250 MB · Pro: unlimited links, bigger uploads

To open an old XLS file online, upload it to Link in Seconds and share the link. We read the Excel 97 to 2003 binary format in the browser, show every sheet as a tab, and never convert the file. Recipients need no Excel, no Compatibility Mode and no account.

Part of our guide to File viewers.

Drag in your PDF

From your desktop or phone, any file works

1 / 4

creating your link…

proposal.pdf

2.1 MB

Drop to upload

1 PDF · 2.1 MBOpens in the browser

Opened·first view 2 min after sending

By the numbers

2,200+

people sharing files

4,200+

links shared

15,000+

times opened

Part of our guide to File viewers.

How it works

1
Upload the file as it came
There is no need to convert it to XLSX first. Sign in with Google and upload the .xls straight from the export folder or the email it arrived in, up to 250 MB on the free plan.
2
We confirm it is a real XLS
Genuine Excel 97 to 2003 workbooks begin with a fixed binary signature, and we check for it before publishing. A file that only carries an .xls name is turned away with a clear message instead of being shown as garbage.
3
Share one link with everyone involved
Send it to the accountant, the auditor or the client. They all open the same read-only table, and your dashboard shows how many of them did.

Made for exports from older systems

Payroll tools, inventory software and statement downloads often still write XLS because their code predates 2007. Pass that file on as it is, without nursing a twenty year old format through a modern spreadsheet app first.

No Compatibility Mode, no converted copy

Opening an XLS in recent Excel or in Google Sheets usually means a warning banner or a converted duplicate you then have to keep track of. The browser view reads the original bytes and displays them, nothing else.

Multi-sheet legacy reports stay together

Old reports often split data into one sheet per month, branch or account. All of them appear as named tabs above the grid in their original order, so a twelve-sheet report is still one link.

Built for records you have to hand over

Sending archived statements or a legacy report to an auditor? Set an expiry date so the link stops working when the review ends, and add a password if the figures are sensitive. Both are free on every plan.

Where legacy XLS files need care

Some "XLS" files are not Excel files: Plenty of web apps export an HTML page or a tab-separated text file and just name it .xls. Excel opens those with a warning, but they are not real workbooks, so our upload rejects them. Save the file as XLSX in Excel or LibreOffice, or rename a tab-separated export to .tsv, and upload again.
Macros are ignored: Old workbooks often carry VBA macros. The preview only reads cell values, so no macro code ever runs for your reader. That keeps the view safe, but anything a macro would recalculate on open stays as saved.
Huge ledgers are trimmed in the view: A sheet with 50,000 lines shows its first 1,000 rows (and up to 60 columns) in the browser, with a note saying so. Allow downloads if the reader needs every line.

Frequently asked questions

Still stuck? Ask us directly and a real person answers.

It is the binary workbook format Microsoft Excel used from Excel 97 to Excel 2003, often called BIFF8. Excel has saved XLSX by default since 2007, but many older systems still produce XLS and the files remain perfectly readable.