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grahamperrin

macrumors 601
Jun 8, 2007
4,942
648
Bugs in Microsoft Office, and an answer in Ask Different

/

The / bug is one of a number of old bugs; Microsoft has not properly updated apps such as Excel to work with POSIX-compliant use of the HFS Plus file system by Mac OS X. It's vaguely possible that no-one has reported the bugs to Microsoft.

Other explanations

In Ask Different: Excel 2011 Opens Spreadsheet As Read-Only – today's answer from me goes beyond the / example.

The opening poster's case

… save it to a different place, did it straight to the desktop and it's fine :/

If the symptom recurs, at the previously affected path, try ls and lsof as suggested in Ask Different.
 

distronic

macrumors newbie
Feb 26, 2010
5
0
In my firm we have a Mac file server on our network and all users belong to a group that has read/write permissions to certain folders. A user complained about not being able to save a file on the server after working on it - she could save to other locations but not over this specific XLSX file. I reset the permissions on the folder and then checked the excel file. Sure enough, the read-only tag still appeared. I then duplicated the file and opened that. Interestingly it did not have a read-only tag. I then added some text, saved, closed and re-opened the file, and the read-only text did not appear. So for now, I have solved my problem but am unsure what caused it. The file in question does not have any slashes, only alphabet characters, and there is no hidden file with the ~ symbol. I was able to delete the file after confirming my duplicate was working, but only from a Windows machine.
 

lsebek

macrumors newbie
May 1, 2007
2
0
Toronto
Excel file opening in Read Only Mode

I had this problem today, and finally figured out the solution. I had put a slash "/" in the filename, which is OK on the Mac, but Excel does NOT like it. When I removed the slash from the filename (using the finder), the Excel file then opened normally. I often use slashes when adding the date as part of the filename. When working on an Excel, Word, or PowerPoint file, I have to remember to use dashes, not slashes. In this case, my filename included the phrase "64/128 bit register". I changed it to "64 or 128 bit register".

Hope this helps someone. I wasted a lot of time on it.

MacBook Pro (Early 2011) running OS 10.8 Mountain Lion
Office for Mac 2011 vers 14.2.3 (120616)
It solved my problem, after lots of other attempts to resolve it. thanks ttrent!
 

indurti.vidya

macrumors newbie
Aug 16, 2015
1
0
Excel file opening in Read Only Mode

I had this problem today, and finally figured out the solution. I had put a slash "/" in the filename, which is OK on the Mac, but Excel does NOT like it. When I removed the slash from the filename (using the finder), the Excel file then opened normally. I often use slashes when adding the date as part of the filename. When working on an Excel, Word, or PowerPoint file, I have to remember to use dashes, not slashes. In this case, my filename included the phrase "64/128 bit register". I changed it to "64 or 128 bit register".

Hope this helps someone. I wasted a lot of time on it.

MacBook Pro (Early 2011) running OS 10.8 Mountain Lion
Office for Mac 2011 vers 14.2.3 (120616)
Ughhh.. wasted so much time for this silly fix. Thanks!
 

fani101

macrumors newbie
Oct 2, 2015
1
0
Excel file opening in Read Only Mode

I had this problem today, and finally figured out the solution. I had put a slash "/" in the filename, which is OK on the Mac, but Excel does NOT like it. When I removed the slash from the filename (using the finder), the Excel file then opened normally. I often use slashes when adding the date as part of the filename. When working on an Excel, Word, or PowerPoint file, I have to remember to use dashes, not slashes. In this case, my filename included the phrase "64/128 bit register". I changed it to "64 or 128 bit register".

Hope this helps someone. I wasted a lot of time on it.

MacBook Pro (Early 2011) running OS 10.8 Mountain Lion
Office for Mac 2011 vers 14.2.3 (120616)
I also had this problem! Removing the / from the file name worked, too. Really stupid of Excel if you consider people often save financial spreadsheets by date...
 

WalkerStudios

macrumors newbie
Jan 7, 2016
1
0
Excel file opening in Read Only Mode

I had this problem today, and finally figured out the solution. I had put a slash "/" in the filename, which is OK on the Mac, but Excel does NOT like it. When I removed the slash from the filename (using the finder), the Excel file then opened normally. I often use slashes when adding the date as part of the filename. When working on an Excel, Word, or PowerPoint file, I have to remember to use dashes, not slashes. In this case, my filename included the phrase "64/128 bit register". I changed it to "64 or 128 bit register".

Hope this helps someone. I wasted a lot of time on it.
THANKYOU!!!! That was the problem :)
 

jski

macrumors newbie
Nov 6, 2015
1
0
Brooklyn, NY
Excel file opening in Read Only Mode

I had this problem today, and finally figured out the solution. I had put a slash "/" in the filename, which is OK on the Mac, but Excel does NOT like it. When I removed the slash from the filename (using the finder), the Excel file then opened normally. I often use slashes when adding the date as part of the filename. When working on an Excel, Word, or PowerPoint file, I have to remember to use dashes, not slashes. In this case, my filename included the phrase "64/128 bit register". I changed it to "64 or 128 bit register".

Hope this helps someone. I wasted a lot of time on it.

MacBook Pro (Early 2011) running OS 10.8 Mountain Lion
Office for Mac 2011 vers 14.2.3 (120616)
YOU ARE THE WOMAN
 

congiundi

macrumors newbie
Jul 11, 2016
1
0
Microsoft is no help on this one... and no need to fiddle around with changing the name of the file.
Simply use TinkerTool or some other Mac utility program to set your Finder to show hidden files. Then reload the Finder. You will see a hidden file within the same folder as the Read-Only file with the same name except a ~ (tilde) is in front of the name. Place this file into the Trash. This will clear your Read-Only condition. Then use TinkerTool to hide hidden files and reload your Finder.
Bill Gates placed that file into the folder to indicate to his programmers that the file was open (thus locked). Being that you did this on a different computer, left the file open, then copied the entire folder from the source computer to the one having the problem, it will be impossible to unlock the file without having the original computer to do it for you (or use the method I outlined).
Moral of the story: think like Bill Gates, or don't copy files while they are open.
 
Last edited:

sbj911nm

macrumors newbie
Jul 20, 2017
1
0
Excel file opening in Read Only Mode

I had this problem today, and finally figured out the solution. I had put a slash "/" in the filename, which is OK on the Mac, but Excel does NOT like it. When I removed the slash from the filename (using the finder), the Excel file then opened normally. I often use slashes when adding the date as part of the filename. When working on an Excel, Word, or PowerPoint file, I have to remember to use dashes, not slashes. In this case, my filename included the phrase "64/128 bit register". I changed it to "64 or 128 bit register".

Hope this helps someone. I wasted a lot of time on it.

MacBook Pro (Early 2011) running OS 10.8 Mountain Lion
Office for Mac 2011 vers 14.2.3 (120616)
*******************
THANK YOU SO MUCH ... I have had this problem intermitently & you just solved why it happened.
 

JRLNCAL

macrumors newbie
Nov 13, 2017
1
0
Excel file opening in Read Only Mode

I had this problem today, and finally figured out the solution. I had put a slash "/" in the filename, which is OK on the Mac, but Excel does NOT like it. When I removed the slash from the filename (using the finder), the Excel file then opened normally. I often use slashes when adding the date as part of the filename. When working on an Excel, Word, or PowerPoint file, I have to remember to use dashes, not slashes. In this case, my filename included the phrase "64/128 bit register". I changed it to "64 or 128 bit register".

Hope this helps someone. I wasted a lot of time on it.

MacBook Pro (Early 2011) running OS 10.8 Mountain Lion
Office for Mac 2011 vers 14.2.3 (120616)



Wow! I have been working at this on and off for a few weeks to no avail. All of the standard answers have failed until I found your post regarding the slash. Yes, putting the slash in the name of an Excel file name was the problem, that was immediately solved on removing it from the name of the document.

Thanks!

MacBook Air, Sierra, Excel 2011
 

mgts24

macrumors newbie
May 14, 2018
1
0
Scotland
Excel file opening in Read Only Mode

I had this problem today, and finally figured out the solution. I had put a slash "/" in the filename, which is OK on the Mac, but Excel does NOT like it. When I removed the slash from the filename (using the finder), the Excel file then opened normally. I often use slashes when adding the date as part of the filename. When working on an Excel, Word, or PowerPoint file, I have to remember to use dashes, not slashes. In this case, my filename included the phrase "64/128 bit register". I changed it to "64 or 128 bit register".

Hope this helps someone. I wasted a lot of time on it.

Thanks, this helped me a lot. Microsoft still has more illegal characters than Mac, it seems. This solved the same problem for me.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

mrboult

macrumors 6502
Jul 29, 2008
406
91
London, England
Excel file opening in Read Only Mode

I had this problem today, and finally figured out the solution. I had put a slash "/" in the filename, which is OK on the Mac, but Excel does NOT like it. When I removed the slash from the filename (using the finder), the Excel file then opened normally. I often use slashes when adding the date as part of the filename. When working on an Excel, Word, or PowerPoint file, I have to remember to use dashes, not slashes. In this case, my filename included the phrase "64/128 bit register". I changed it to "64 or 128 bit register".

Hope this helps someone. I wasted a lot of time on it.

MacBook Pro (Early 2011) running OS 10.8 Mountain Lion
Office for Mac 2011 vers 14.2.3 (120616)

Many years later this post of yours has totally saved my ass! Been going mad for an hour about why Excel is opening all the workbooks I made today in 'read only'. . . . .

You are a star for finding this bizare issue that is still relevant in 2019 with MacOS Mojave and Office '16.

THANK YOU :)
 
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