Issues exporting to .xls: "External table not in expected format?"

Christopher Snow

Has anyone else experienced this error "External table not in expected format?" Apprently it has to with a recent Microsoft security update. Blackbaud has little information and Microsoft points teh finger back to Blackbaud. Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing frustration from this? We are on Windows 7, Raiser's Edge 7.93.

James Andrews

Christopher Snow:

Has anyone else experienced this error "External table not in expected format?" Apprently it has to with a recent Microsoft security update. Blackbaud has little information and Microsoft points teh finger back to Blackbaud. Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing frustration from this? We are on Windows 7, Raiser's Edge 7.93.

Yep, I've gotten it. 


I never like exporting to Excel anyway. So often, data comes out with the apostrophe starting each cell, which forces Excel to treat every cell as text.  Exporting to character-separated text and letting Excel figure out the data types is so much more reliable, in my experience.

Barbara Schlichter

James Andrews:

Christopher Snow:

Has anyone else experienced this error "External table not in expected format?" Apprently it has to with a recent Microsoft security update. Blackbaud has little information and Microsoft points teh finger back to Blackbaud. Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing frustration from this? We are on Windows 7, Raiser's Edge 7.93.

Yep, I've gotten it. 


I never like exporting to Excel anyway. So often, data comes out with the apostrophe starting each cell, which forces Excel to treat every cell as text.  Exporting to character-separated text and letting Excel figure out the data types is so much more reliable, in my experience.

 

Yes, the updates that cause the problem are KB4041678 and KB4041681,  you will also get a weird error if trying to export from any tab (i.e gifts).  I deleted both KBs from our computers and asked IT to not push them to us again.  If you choose Excel 2007 (XLSX) as the export format from tools--export options, this should solve the problem.  If you export from a tab, choose the 1st option, export gift grid.  Hope this helps!

Judy Spigarelli

Christopher Snow:

Has anyone else experienced this error "External table not in expected format?" Apprently it has to with a recent Microsoft security update. Blackbaud has little information and Microsoft points teh finger back to Blackbaud. Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing frustration from this? We are on Windows 7, Raiser's Edge 7.93.

We're doing the same thing as Barbara, changing the Export file format to Excel 2007.  This solved our error messages.  Hope it's a quick fix for you as well.

Nicole Holt

Christopher Snow:

Has anyone else experienced this error "External table not in expected format?" Apprently it has to with a recent Microsoft security update. Blackbaud has little information and Microsoft points teh finger back to Blackbaud. Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing frustration from this? We are on Windows 7, Raiser's Edge 7.93.

Yes, having this problem. Searched for the MS updates with IT, they don't exist on my computer, so I'm guessing that my issue is that we are hosted, and so the office product that opens when we "export to grid" is the hosted version, not local. It's a pain.

Angie Stumpo

This happened to us. I had to change the Export to a CSV to get it to work.

Katie McCormick

Angie Stumpo:

This happened to us. I had to change the Export to a CSV to get it to work.


​What if a CSV isn't listed as a file that I can save it to? It only lists Execl and All Files. When I choose all files, I get the same error message? -Katie

 

James Andrews

Katie McCormick:

Angie Stumpo:

This happened to us. I had to change the Export to a CSV to get it to work.

 

​What if a CSV isn't listed as a file that I can save it to? It only lists Execl and All Files. When I choose all files, I get the same error message? -Katie

 

 

It's in the Tools menu under Export Options -- what you're seeing is what you get when you try and change it at the time of export.