Hello,

Try renaming your <strike>localstore.rdf</strike> mimetypes.rdf file in your profile folder. Note that this will reset your application preferences.

Go to your troubleshooting page in Firefox:

• Enter about:support in the address bar, or go to Help (or > ) > Troubleshooting Information
• Click the "Show Folder" button
• See Profiles - Where Firefox stores your bookmarks, passwords and other user data for more information

This should open your profile folder in Windows Explorer. Close Firefox and then rename the <strike>localstore.rdf</strike> mimetypes.rdf file to something else, such as <strike>localstore.old</strike> mimetypes.old . Start Firefox again and it will create a new localstore.rdf - try opening an Excel file in Firefox now. If it works properly, you can remove the <strike>localstore.old</strike> mimetypes.old or whatever you renamed the file as.

Let us know if that works!

Hi CoryMH

When I typed in %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles, 3 files came up all with default in their titles - 5ww7i8uh.default-1383845535365 - 8qzczdk3.default - ahhjhtv7.default-1339401082215

All contained localstore.rdf so I changed them all to localstore-old.rdf, however I was still unable to view the excel file after doing so. This is an example of what I see when I try �� ࡱ ����������������>� ���

Is there something else I could try?

Sorry, I made a mistake. I meant mimetypes.rdf

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/MimeTypes.rdf

The one I told you to change would reset your interface, sorry about that:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Localstore.rdf

As an aside it is strange that you have 3 profile folders. It won't affect your Firefox experience, but if you are only using one of them (most likely the one that is .default with nothing else after it), the other two are not doing anything.

The appended time stamps suggest that those two were created in 2012 as the result of a reset.

You can use this button to go to the currently used Firefox profile folder:

• Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Show Folder (Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder)

That should be able to identify the currently used profiles.

If the other two show in the Profile Manager then you can remove them there and delete the files. That way the secondary cache location is cleared as well.

C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>\ C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>\

If the server sends the file as text/plain then you won't be able to bypass this and you need to right-click the link and use "Save Link As" to save the file. See Tools > Page Info > General

• https://developer.mozilla.org/Properly_Configuring_Server_MIME_Types
• https://developer.mozilla.org/How_Mozilla_determines_MIME_Types

Ok, I've deleted my extra profiles based on instructions from cor-el ... thanks.

CoryMH, I renamed mineTypes.rdf and relaunch Firefox but to no avail, I'm still seeing symbols. Is there anything else you might be able to suggest?

Firefox isn't made to view "office" type files, such as Excel files. You need some type of add-on or plugin.

See if this extension works for you to view Excel type files in Firefox. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/view-in-office-web-apps/

Adding a context menu item for Microsoft Office documents links on the web page, for viewing it online in Microsoft Office Web Apps. supports Word (doc/dot/docx/dotx), Excel (xls/xlsx/xlsb/xlsm), PowerPoint (ppt/pps/pot/pptx/ppsx) and OpenDocument (odt/ods/odp) documents. File links on the Google search result pages are also supported.

Hi the-edmeister, I successfully installed the Office Online Viewer extension as suggested but it didn't resolve the issue.

The thing that's frustrating is I used to be able to view & download spreadsheets in the past and I don't know what I may have done for it to stop. I've been using Chrome as a workaround but my preference is Firefox.

Try a spreadsheet from a different site and see if you have the same problem.

As cor-el posted earlier: If the server sends the file as text/plain then you won't be able to bypass this and you need to right-click the link and use "Save Link As" to save the file.

Thanks CoryHM for reiterating cor-el's instruction because it appears I completely overlooked the second part of his/her advise. When I tried viewing a spreadsheet from another site it worked a treat.

You're all legends ... cheers!

Glad to help