Microsoft KB Archive/161795

= XL97: Error When You Display Form Created by Web Form Wizard =

Article ID: 161795

Article Last Modified on 10/22/2000

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Excel 97 Standard Edition

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This article was previously published under Q161795



SYMPTOMS
When you use an Internet browser to view a form that is created by the Web Form Wizard, you may receive the following error message:

: file format is not valid

where  is the name of the form. When this behavior occurs, your only option is to click OK.



CAUSE
This behavior may occur if Microsoft Excel 97 is not installed on the computer. To use your Internet browser to display a form that is created by the Microsoft Excel 97 Web Form Wizard, Microsoft Excel 97 must be installed on your computer.

The form created by the Web Form Wizard is a Microsoft Excel 97 workbook. When you use a Web browser to view this form, Microsoft Excel 97 must open the workbook in order for the browser to display the form.



RESOLUTION
To resolve this behavior, install Microsoft Excel 97 on your computer.



MORE INFORMATION
Requesting and gathering information over the Internet requires the use of forms. In addition, you must have some knowledge of the server, database storage, and computer programming.

Because you can use a Microsoft Excel worksheet to simulate a form, you can use Microsoft Excel 97 as an engine to generate a form for the Web.

When others visit your Web site and make a request for the Microsoft Excel 97 form, the form is downloaded to the client, and Microsoft Excel 97 is started. When the user completes the form and clicks Submit Info, Microsoft Excel submits the data on the form to the database on your Web server. Then, Microsoft Excel closes the form and quits.

On the server, the data is parsed according to the method you specify when you create the form using the Web Form Wizard. The methods you can specify are Microsoft Internet Information Server, or Common Gateway Interface (CGI). If you use Internet Information Server, the data is saved in the Microsoft Access database (.mdb) file that is created by the wizard. If you use CGI, the data is processed by a PERL script and is saved in a .csv text file.

