This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

Mozilla converts downloaded excel spreadsheets to HTM files

  • 2 replies
  • 25 have this problem
  • 8 views
  • Last reply by derernst

phillydog
phillydog
more options

We have a financial accounting system that allows us to download files in XLS format. When I used Internet Explorer with the system I never had a problem. However, Mozilla will not download an excel spreadsheet from the system. Rather, it creates an empty htm file and asks me what program I want to use to open the file. I used excel and it came up blank.

We have a financial accounting system that allows us to download files in XLS format. When I used Internet Explorer with the system I never had a problem. However, Mozilla will not download an excel spreadsheet from the system. Rather, it creates an empty htm file and asks me what program I want to use to open the file. I used excel and it came up blank.

All Replies (2)

derernst
derernst
more options

Let me provide some additional info on the problem: It has been a nice trick for years to easily create *.xls files via PHP by just creating an HTML table, and delivering it with an MS Excel mime type and an xls suffix. Browsers then saved the file to disk, or had Excel open it, which works well.

I can't say when this stopped working in Firefox. My current configuration is: Windows 7, Firefox 9.0.1, MS Office Starter. When I try to download this type of XLS file, Firefox seems to analyze the content and add an .htm extension to the filename, regardless of what is set in the application settings.

This may be a feature rather than a bug - however, it breaks a lot of existing web applications. I can locate the downloaded file in the temp folder, remove the .htm extension and open the file with Excel. But this is not acceptable for my customers; I'd rather give them the advice to use IE for applications that create XLS files.

derernst
derernst
more options

Update: I just noticed that the above happens only when I choose "Open with" in the download dialog. It happens though the MS Client Virtualization Handler is correctly set as the application to open the file.

OTOH, when I choose "download to disk", the file extension will not be changed, and I can open the file with Excel by normally doubleclicking it.