Cannot open .xlsm

Question

I cannot open .xlsm file using mac that was previously created using windows. Please help. First this pop up box appeared “This workbook contains one or more links to external sources that could be unsafe”. Either update or don’t update won’t make any difference. These errors ‘53’ and file not found “user32” popped up. Please help.

Answer 1

Hi

Run Time error 53 means that there is an error in the Visual Basic code. The code tries to open a file that does not exist on your Mac in the location specified by the VBA code. Chances are, whoever wrote the code did not expect the macro to run on a machine other than their own and they hard-coded the path name to the file.

It's easy to avoid that kind of error using VBA commands that handle file names and file paths correctly. This web site by Excel MVP Ron De Bruin explains the ins and outs of using file names and file paths correctly:

https://www.macexcel.com/examples/filesandfolders/

Answer 2

Yes it was created on Windows and recently I changed to Mac. Unfortunately I could not open the file. Here are the screenshots.

I clicked on Update. Error came out. The same goes when I clicked on Don't Update.

I don't have any other .xlsm files to confirm whether they can be open or not.

Thank you.

Answer 3

Hi SITI SITI,

Sorry for the inconvenience the problem caused for you.

Based on your description, you can't open XLSM file which was created from Windows on Excel for Mac.

May I know that whether the problem happened on all the XLSM files created from Windows? If not, then the problem may be related to the specific file.

If the problem happens on all the XLSM files, could you please provide screenshots of the error message for me?

Best regards,

Jazlyn

Answer 4

I'm using Microsoft 365 - Excel. I could not open my macro excel file due to this error. This workbook contains links to one or more external sources that could be unsafe. Please help.