Frequently asked questions
Answers to the questions people ask us, and to the ones they should.
- Are my files sent anywhere?
- No. Your browser reads and transforms them in the tab's memory. The page's security policy forbids any connection to another domain, and you can check it by turning off the network: everything keeps working. How to check.
- Is it really free?
- Yes, completely, with no account and no file limit. The only thing for sale is the licence to install Klargrid on your own network. On your intranet.
- Do I need Excel?
- No. Klargrid reads and writes Excel files itself. A recent browser is enough, on Windows, macOS, Linux or a tablet.
- Which formats are supported?
- Excel 2007 and later workbooks (.xlsx, .xlsm), OpenDocument spreadsheets (.ods), CSV and text files in all common encodings, and JSON. Old .xls files (Excel 97-2003) are not read yet.
- Does my repaired workbook keep its charts and macros?
- Yes. The workbook tools (health check, slim down, links, clean) rewrite only the parts they fix; everything else, charts, macros, pivot tables, validations, comes out unchanged. Only cleaning before sending removes macros, and only if you ask.
- Why is my Excel file so large?
- Usually not because of its data: formatting applied to whole columns stretches the used range to a million rows, styles copied between workbooks pile up by the thousand, and every paste duplicates conditional formatting rules. The health check measures each of these causes, and Slim down a workbook removes them.
- Excel says "Too many different cell formats": what can I do?
- The workbook has hit the limit of about 64,000 cell formats, almost always because of duplicates. Slim down a workbook merges identical formats and removes those no cell uses, without changing how a single cell looks.
- My CSV shows "é" instead of "é": how do I fix it?
- The file was saved as UTF-8 and then read as Windows-1252. Fix a CSV file recognises the mix-up, repairs every character and produces a CSV Excel opens correctly, or an XLSX.
- How many rows can I open?
- Excel stops at 1,048,576 rows. Open a large file reads a CSV from your disk in chunks: several gigabytes and tens of millions of rows can be browsed, filtered and exported.
- Is Klargrid related to Microsoft?
- No. Klargrid is not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft. Excel is a Microsoft trademark; the word here refers to the files the tool can read.
- Can we install it on our network?
- Yes. The same site can be copied onto an internal server and works with no Internet access. Klargrid on your intranet.