How To Fix The Excel File Opening Blank Issue?

When opening an Excel file, you may face a situation where you see a blank screen instead of the contents of the file you want to see. This “Excel file opening blank” issue can occur due to problems with your Excel file or hidden sheets in the Excel file.

The issue can also occur due to reasons, such as faulty or damaged add-ins, corruption in the workbook, etc. In this post, you’ll learn the methods to resolve this Excel issue. It also mentions a professional Excel recovery software that can help resolve the issue if it is associated with corruption in the Excel file.

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Methods to Fix the “Excel File Opening Blank” Issue

This issue can occur if the Excel sheet is hidden. You can unhide it by clicking on the unhide option on the View tab in Excel. If this is not the case, then follow the below methods to resolve the “Excel file opening blank” issue.

Method 1: Turn Off the Hardware Acceleration Option

Sometimes, the “Excel file opening blank” issue occurs due to video adaptor or graphics driver configuration issue. If the driver configurations are preventing the Excel file from loading, then you can disable the Hardware Acceleration option in Excel. Here are the steps:

• Open your Excel.
• Click the File option and then click Options.
• In Excel Options, click the Advanced tab.
• Under the Advanced window, search for the “Disable hardware graphics acceleration” option in the list of available options.

• Unselect the “Disable hardware graphics acceleration” option and click OK.

Method 2: Check and Turn Off Add-ins

The Excel file opening blank issue can appear due to faulty or incompatible Excel add-ins. You can open the Excel in safe mode to check whether the issue is caused by add-ins or not. To open Excel in safe mode, type excel /safe in the Run dialog box and then click OK.

In safe mode, try to open the file. If you are able to open the file, then it indicates the Excel add-ins are causing the issue. You can then disable the add-ins to troubleshoot the issue. Here are the steps:

• In Excel options, click the Add-ins option.
• From the Manage option dropdown, select COM Add-ins and then click Go.
• Unselect one of the listed add-ins and then click OK.
• Repeat the same steps to disable all COM add-ins.

If the issue still occurs, then disable Excel Add-ins. Restart the Excel application and check if the error is fixed.

Method 3: Ignore DDE

Many users have confirmed that they’re able to fix the “Excel file opening blank” issue by unselecting the “Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) option in Excel. You can check and unselect this option by following these steps:

• In Excel, go to File and then click Options.
• In Excel Options, click Advanced.
• In the Advanced window, search for the General section and unselect the Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) checkbox.
• Click OK.

Method 4: Reset Excel File Associations Settings

You can face the “Excel file opening blank” issue due to incorrect file associations in the system. You can check and reset the Excel file associations. Here are the steps:

• Open your system’s File Explorer.
• Find the affected file, right-click on it, and then click Properties.
• In the Properties window, click the General tab and check the “Type of file“.
• Now, again right-click on the file and select the “Open with” option.

• It will show the application associated with this file.
• To change the application to open the file, you can click More Apps and then click on the desired app.
• Click on the checkbox labeled “Always use this app” and then click OK.

Also Read: Why Is My Excel File So Large? Know the Reasons

Method 5: Repair your Excel File

The “Excel file opening blank” issue can also occur due to corruption in the Excel file. You can repair the Excel file to fix the issue. For repairing the file, you can use the Microsoft’s built-in utility – Open and Repair. Here are the steps to use this utility:

• In Excel, click File and then select Open.
• Click the Browse option to choose the Excel file you want to repair.
• In the Open dialog box, click on the damaged file.
• Click the arrow next to the Open option and then select Open and Repair.
• Click on the Repair option from the three options – Repair, Extract Data, and Cancel.
• Once the file repair process is complete, click Close.

The Open and Repair utility may fail to repair the highly corrupted Excel file. In this case, you can try a professional Excel repair tool to repair the Excel file. Stellar Repair for Excel is an advanced Excel repair tool that can repair severely damaged Excel (.xls, .xlsx, .xltm, .xltx, and .xlsm) files. It can recover all the data from the damaged files with complete integrity. One of the standout features of the tool is its ability to repair Excel files of any size. You can even repair multiple Excel files in a batch.

To Conclude