st: troubles with -import excel-

[Stas Kolenikov <skolenik@gmail.com>]

I have some weird issues with opening Excel files from a network
drive. This may have to do with the potentially complicated
sharing/ownership/permission structure, but here's what it is:

. import excel using "W:\Restricted
Projects\Project001\MyExcelFile.xls" , cellrange( c7 ) sheet("Sheet1")
file W:\Restricted Projects\Project001\MyExcelFile.xls could not be loaded
r(603);

. ls "W:\Restricted Projects\Project001\MyExcelFile.xls"
 234.0k   4/08/13  9:36  MyExcelFile.xls

OK, so far so good, the file exists. I can copy and move it around in
the file manager (Windows Explorer).

When I try to import it from the GUI, the error message is more
detailed, but still cryptic:

Unable to load Excel file.

Error: "The central directory was not found in the archive (or you
were trying to open not the last volume of a segmented archive)."

I can open other Excel files in this Project001 directory, though. So
I thought it had to do with the Excel file itself. It is automatically
produced by another program, and I am not sure how good it is to
produce fully MS-compatible files (which is what Stata apparently
hopes for). The problem isn't with the contents of these cells, as I
am able to read these cells from another Excel file to which Sheet1 of
MyExcelFile.xls was copied and pasted.

Any suggestions?

-- Stas Kolenikov, PhD, PStat (SSC)
-- Senior Survey Statistician, Abt SRBI
-- Opinions stated in this email are mine only, and do not reflect the
position of my employer
-- http://stas.kolenikov.name
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