Configuring Mac Internet Explorer to Open MS Excel Files

ID: Q163901

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Excel for the Macintosh, version 5.0
Microsoft Internet Explorer for Macintosh, version 3.0

SUMMARY

By default, when you type a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for a Microsoft Excel file or you click a hyperlink to a Microsoft Excel file, Microsoft Internet Explorer for the Macintosh saves the file to the local hard disk and Microsoft Excel is not started.

This article explains how to change this behavior so that Microsoft Excel is started and the file is opened.

NOTE: Currently, it is not possible to open Microsoft Excel for the Macintosh within Internet Explorer. When you start Microsoft Excel, it appears in its own window.

MORE INFORMATION

To start Microsoft Excel when you type a URL for a Microsoft Excel file or when you click a hyperlink to a Microsoft Excel file, use the following steps:

1. Start Internet Explorer.

2. On the Edit menu, click Preferences.

3. Click the Helpers tab, scroll down the list of Helpers to the item

   that refers to Microsoft Excel. Click the item and click Edit.

   NOTE: The item name varies from computer to computer but is usually
   similar to "Excel Workspace" or "Excel Macro" (without the quotation
   marks).

4. In the Configure File Type dialog box, type the following settings.

      Setting                         Value
      ---------------------------------------------------------------------

      Description                     Any text string you want. Use
                                      descriptive text, for example, "Excel
                                      Files" (without the quotation marks).

      MIME Type                       Application/Excel

      Suffixes                        ".xls" (without the quotation marks).
                                      Add as many suffixes you want.

      Encoding                        "Binary" (without the quotation
                                      marks)

      How to Handle                   "Use a Helper Application" Click this
                                      in the "How to Handle" list.

      Helper Application              Location for Microsoft Excel. Click
                                      Choose, select the Microsoft Excel
                                      program, and then click Select.

      File Type                       "XLS5" (without the quotation marks
                                      and in uppercase)

5. Click OK.

6. Click OK to close the Preferences dialog box.

REFERENCES

For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q162327
   TITLE     : Internet Explorer 3.0 for Macintosh Release Notes File

Additional query words:

Keywords          : kbinterop xlloadsave xlweb 
Version           : MACINTOSH:5.00
Platform          : MACINTOSH
Issue type        : kbinfo

Last Reviewed: June 1, 1999