Bytescout XLS Viewer

XLSViewer is intended to view the contents of various types of spreadsheet files. The program is extremely easy to use, probably because it has very limited functionality as well.

As said, and there is no other feature hidden, all it does is open such formats as XLSX, XLS, ODS, CSV and tab-delimited values TXT. Fortunately, it is a very small program and does not require any other spreadsheet software, like Microsoft Excel, installed on your system.

I know there is nothing wrong with being simple. Small utilities like this one can sometimes solve big problems and save a lot of bucks in expensive software. However, I expected more from this tool. In this regard, I could make a long list of all the things it does not support, but I will not. Instead, I will refer to the things it should do but fails to do properly. For instance, it does not support dragging and dropping files onto its window, so you need to go the long way through Windows Explorer to open a file. Likewise, it cannot give you a proper explanation when an error occurs, which I discovered just by chance. Accidentally, I tried to open a CSV file that was still open on Microsoft Excel. Logically, you cannot work on an open file without creating a copy. A decent program would have given me such a notice but XLSViewer just crashed.

All in all, I will not deny XLSViewer can come in handy at times, and, luckily, it is absolutely free. Still, it is a shame that it is still buggy, which is unforgivable for such a small utility. I hope its problems are fixed to save its users unnecessary complications.