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xlsb vs xlsm

I am hoping some of the forum experts might weigh in on which is better xlsb or xlsm or what are the benefits and drawbacks of each format

I did some searching and nothing really stood out other than xlsb was maybe faster and more "high fidelity"

And xlsm did a better job of getting creating a reconstruction copy of your file if Excel crashed

Thanks
 
xlsb is binary format and has following advantages over .xlsx/.xlsm

1. Smaller file size. Especially noticeable when file is large.
2. Loading/Saving is much faster since it does not need to parse XML files.
3. Last but not least supports formulas above the 8192 character limit (not an issue in most instances)

Then there are disadvantages...
1. Excel 2003 (without updates applied) and older does not support it
2. Many third-party software will not recognize xlsb format. You'll need to convert it to .xls, .xlsx or .csv format.
3. You can't edit Ribbon. You will need to convert it to xlsx or xlsm format first, make changes and then save as xlsb.
4. No way of telling before hand, whether the file contains macro or not.
 
I may be wrong on that. I rarely change ribbon and that part is from article back in 2015 I read. Will need to test. Thanks for pointing it out.
 
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