python - Pandas.read_excel: Unsupported format, or corrupt file: Expected BOF record

Question

I'm trying to use pandas.read_excel to read in .xls files. It succeeds on most of my .xls files, but then for some it errors out with the following error message:

Unsupported format, or corrupt file: Expected BOF record; found 'x00x05x16x07x00x02x00x00'

I've been trying to research why this is happening to some, but not all files. The xlrd version is 1.0.0. I tried to manually read in with xlrd.open_workbook and I get the same result.

Does anyone know what file type, this BOF record is referring to?

Answer 1

There are various reasons to why that error message appeared. However, the main reason could be due to the Excel file itself. Sometimes, especially if you're pulling an Excel file from some Reporting Portal, the Excel file could be corrupt so the best thing would be to open the Excel file and save it as a new .xls file then retry running pandas.read_excel.

Lemme know if it works.