Format

Microsoft Excel 4.0 Workbook (xls)

Summary

Name

Microsoft Excel 4.0 Workbook (xls)

Version

4W

Identifiers

• MIME: application/vnd.ms-excel
• Apple Uniform Type Identifier: com.microsoft.excel.xls
• PUID: fmt/58

Format type

Spreadsheet

Disclosure

None

Description

The Binary Interchange File Format (BIFF) is a spreadsheet file format developed by Microsoft. BIFF 4W is a native file format of Microsoft Excel 4.0 for Windows. Excel 4.0 allowed either a single worksheet to be stored as a worksheet file (BIFF 4S), or for multiple worksheets to be combined in a single workbook file (BIFF 4W). The format is proprietary and Microsoft does not make details of its structure public. The information contained here is derived primarily from OpenOffice.org's reverse-engineered documentation of the format, and should not therefore be regarded as definitive. BIFF is a stream based format, and a BIFF 4W file comprises a Workbook Globals Substream, containing a Beginning of File (BOF) record, one or more embedded Worksheet streams (in BIFF 4S format), and terminated by an End of File (EOF) record.

Format encoding

Binary

File extensions

xlw

Submitted by

Digital Preservation Department / The National Archives

Developed by

Microsoft Corporation

Supported by

Microsoft Corporation

Relationships

Is previous version of

• Microsoft Excel 5.0/95 Workbook (xls) 5/95

Is subsequent version of

• Microsoft Excel 3.0 Worksheet (xls) 3

Internal signatures

Changelog

• V84

  Release date

  21 January 2016

  • Updated

    Microsoft Excel 4.0 Workbook (xls) 4W: Adjusted signature based upon file submitted by The Getty Research Institute, with assistance from Archives New Zealand.

• V69

  Release date

  19 July 2013

  • Updated

    Microsoft Excel Workbook 4.0: Improved signature, submitted by Georgia Technology Research Institute.