When you open an XLS file in a newer version of Microsoft Excel, such as Excel 2016 or 2019, you'll see "Compatibility Mode" in the title bar after the file name. If you want to change from Compatibility Mode to Normal Mode, you can save the XLS file as a newer Excel file format like XLSX. In this article, you will learn how to convert XLS to XLSX or XLSX to XLS in Java using Spire.XLS for Java.

• Convert XLS to XLSX
• Convert XLSX to XLS

Install Spire.XLS for Java

First of all, you're required to add the Spire.Xls.jar file as a dependency in your Java program. The JAR file can be downloaded from this link. If you use Maven, you can easily import the JAR file in your application by adding the following code to your project's pom.xml file.

<repositories>
    <repository>
        <id>com.e-iceblue</id>
        <name>e-iceblue</name>
        <url>https://repo.e-iceblue.com/nexus/content/groups/public/</url>
    </repository>
</repositories>
<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>e-iceblue</groupId>
        <artifactId>spire.xls</artifactId>
        <version>14.11.0</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>
    

Convert XLS to XLSX in Java

The following are the steps to convert an XLS file to XLSX format using Spire.XLS for Java:

• Create a Workbook instance.
• Load the XLS file using Workbook.loadFromFile() method.
• Save the XLS file to XLSX format using Workbook.saveToFile(String, ExcelVersion) method.

import com.spire.xls.ExcelVersion;
import com.spire.xls.Workbook;

public class ConvertXlsToXlsx {
    public static void main(String[] args){
        //Initialize an instance of Workbook class
        Workbook workbook = new Workbook();
        //Load the XLS file
        workbook.loadFromFile("Input.xls");

        //Save the XLS file to XLSX format
        workbook.saveToFile("ToXlsx.xlsx", ExcelVersion.Version2016);
    }
}

Convert XLSX to XLS in Java

The following are the steps to convert an XLSX file to XLS format using Spire.XLS for Java:

• Create a Workbook instance.
• Load the XLSX file using Workbook.loadFromFile() method.
• Save the XLSX file to XLS format using Workbook.saveToFile(String, ExcelVersion) method.

import com.spire.xls.ExcelVersion;
import com.spire.xls.Workbook;

public class ConvertXlsxToXls {
    public static void main(String[] args){
        //Initialize an instance of Workbook class
        Workbook workbook = new Workbook();
        //Load the XLSX file
        workbook.loadFromFile("Input.xlsx");

        //Save the XLSX file to XLS format
        workbook.saveToFile("ToXls.xls", ExcelVersion.Version97to2003);
    }
}

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