Excel in HEX edidor

jol

Member
Hi,

Can someone explain how is n excel file encoded ?
1. the attached xls file has been created with excel 2007 and saved as Excel 97-2003 Workbook
2. the format cells has not been changed and left has default (general)
I filled some cells with random data.

Here is the part I don't understand some of the cells can be be seen in HEX editor and some not
Can someone explain how to find/read/decypher it in HEX ?

Chart:
x = can't be seen in hex
v = can see in hex

Code:
        A.                 B                   C
1.    No. X.             No. X.          No. (like a data) V
2.    Ditto.             Ditto
3.    Letters V.         Letter V
4.    Ditto.             Ditto
5.    
6
7.    Letters X.         Letters X.      No. (Like a date) V
8
9.    Ditto.             Ditto.          No. (Like a date) X
10    ditto              letters V
11.   Ditto.             Letters X
12.   Ditto
 

Attachments

  • Book1.xls
    17 KB · Views: 244

Jared

Administrator
Staff member
I see that the cells containing just text are all visible starting down around offset 0x3460. The number values I'd guess are stored completely differently as they are used for math calculations. Probably is more of a binary floating point value rather than an ACII character you could hope to see in HEX.
 

jol

Member
Jared":3ie2gwmn said:
I see that the cells containing just text are all visible starting down around offset 0x3460.
Not exactly true
A7, A9, A10, A11, B7, B9, and B11 are just text and not visible
On the other hand
Jared":3ie2gwmn said:
The number values I'd guess are stored completely differently as they are used for math calculations.
A date can also be used as a math calculation (IMHO, never checked) and it is visible (not all of them)

As a matter of fact I was more interested in finding the way its built regarding strings (text)
 
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