How to Make Excel Your Default Program on Mac

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Excel is an incredibly powerful spreadsheet program that has become the go-to application for managing data, creating charts and graphs, and performing calculations. It’s no woner that many Mac users would like to make Excel the default program for opening spreadsheets. Luckily, setting Excel as your default on a Mac is a relatively easy process.

The first step is to launch Excel. Once it’s open, click on the “Excel” menu at the upper left of your screen and then select “Preferences.” Next, click on the “General” tab in the Preferences window. You should see a section called “Default File Format for Saving.” In this section, there will be a drop-down menu with seveal options. Select the “Excel Workbook (.xlsx)” option from this menu. This will ensure that any new workbooks you create or existing workbooks you open are saved in the .xlsx format by default.

Next, you’ll need to set Excel as your default application for opening spreadsheets on your Mac. To do this, open up your Applications folder and locate the Microsoft Office folder. Right-click (or control-click) on this folder and select “Get Info” from the drop-down menu that appears. In the resulting window, look for an option called “Open With” near the bottom of the window and click on it to expand it if necessary. You shoud see a list of applications here; select “Microsoft Excel” from this list to set it as your default application for opening spreadsheets on your Mac.

Finally, close all open windows and restart your computer to ensure that these settings take effect properly. After restarting your computer, any time you double-click on a spreadsheet document or try to open one through another program (such as Finder), it will automatically be opened in Microsoft Excel instead of another program such as Numbers or Google Sheets.

Making Excel your default spreadsheet program can save you time when creating or editing documents since you don’t have to manually select which application to use each time you want to open a file. With just a few clicks of your mouse, you can make Excel the go-to program for managing data and performing calculations on a Mac!

Setting Excel as the Default Program

To set Excel as your default program, go to the Start menu and select Settings > Apps > Default apps. In the list of default apps, select Excel from the drop-down menu next to “Choose an app for all your .xlsx files”. Once you’ve selected Excel, it will be set as the default program for all your .xlsx files. You can also set oher programs as defaults in this way, such as Word for .docx files or Adobe Reader for PDFs.

how to make excel default on mac
Source: microsoft.com

Changing the Default Program to Open a File on Mac

To change the default program to open a file on Mac, first open a Finder window. Select the file, then choose File > Get Info. In the Info window, click the arrow next to “Open with.” This will reveal a pop-up menu where you can select the app you would like to use as your default program. Once you have selected your preferred app, click the “Change All” button and all files of this type will now be opened with that program. You can also check the box next to “Always Open With” if you want this app to remain your default for this file type goig forward.

Changing the Default File Format from CSV to Excel on Mac

Changing the default from CSV to Excel on your Mac is easy! First, right click on the CSV file in your Downloads folder. Under ‘Open With’, choose ‘Excel’. Then, click ‘Change all’ and confirm your decision. This will make Excel the default program for all future CSV files you open on your Mac!

Changing the Default CSV on Mac

Changing the default file for opening CSVs on Mac is a straightforward process. First, right-click on your CSV file and select “Get info”. Next, click on the dropdown for “Open with” and select your preferred application from the list. Once you have made your selection, click on “Change All” to make it the default application. This will ensure that all CSV files are opened in the application of your choice by default. If you ever want to change this setting again, simply repeat these steps with a different application selected as the default option.

Unable to Locate Excel in Default Programs

If you can’t find Excel in the list of default programs, it’s likely because you haven’t set it as the default program for the file types associted with Excel. To do this, go to Settings > Apps > Default Apps > Choose Default by App. Here, select Word, Excel, Outlook, Powerpoint, Publisher, etc (all of the 365 apps you have installed). Then click the ‘Manage’ button which will show you all of the file types related to each of those apps. Make sure that Excel is chosen as the default app for all of those file types listed. Once done, open a file associated with Excel and it should now open in Excel by default.

how to make excel default on mac
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Making Word and Excel the Default on Mac

To make Microsoft Word and Excel your default applications on Mac, you’ll need to assign them as the default programs used to open files with their respective file types. Here is a step-by-step guide:

1. Open Finder and navigate to the file you want to open with the new application.
2. Right click on the file, then select ‘Get Info’ from the drop-down list.
3. In the Get Info window, look for ‘Open With’ and click on the drop-down menu beside it.
4. Select Microsoft Word or Excel as your preferred program for that file type, then click ‘Change All’ underneath it.
5. You will be prompted by an alert message asking if you are sure that you want to change all similar documents to open with this application; click ‘Continue’ if this is what you wuld like to do.
6. That’s it – all similar documents should now open in Microsoft Word or Excel when double clicked!

Making CSV Files Open Automatically in Excel

Opening CSV files in Excel automatically is a simple process. First, open the Start menu and click on “Default programs”. Then, select the option to “Associate a file type or protocol with a program”. Scroll down to the .csv option and click “Change program.” Choose Microsoft Excel from the list of available programs and click “OK”. Now all .csv files sould open with Excel by default whenever you double-click on them. You can also choose to open CSV files in Excel manually by selecting the “Open with…” option when you right-click on a CSV file in your computer’s directory structure.

Automating the Conversion of CSV Files to Excel

To automatically convert a CSV file to an Excel workbook, you can use Power Automate. First, create a new flow and add the Launch Excel action. In the File Name field, select the comma-delimited or tab-delimited CSV file you want to convert. Next, add a Close Excel action and in this action, choose the Save document as option. Select XLSX as the File Format and provide a name for your new Excel workbook. Finally, save your flow and run it to automatically convert your CSV file to an Excel workbook.

how to make excel default on mac
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Opening Excel with Default Settings

To get Excel to open with, you will need to first right-click on the file you want to open. From the menu that appears, scroll down and select “Choose another app”. A new window will appear with several options. Scroll down until you find “Look for another app on this PC” and select it. You will be prompted to locate the Excel application on your computer; once you have located it, click it to add it as an option in the “Open with…” list. After selecting Excel as your desired application, click OK and it should now appear in the list wheever you right-click a file.

Setting Office 365 as the Default

Setting Office 365 as your default is easy! First, open up the Windows Start menu and type ‘Office 365’. Select the Office 365 app from the list of search results. Once it opens, click on the File tab in the top-left corner of the window. Then click on Options in the left side menu. On this page, you’ll see a section called ‘Choose an Office program to set as your default’. Here you can select which applications within Office 365 you’d like to be your defaults. Select any of the options aailable (for example, Excel or Word) and click OK to save your selections. Now when you open documents with these file types they will open by default in Office 365. That’s it!

Making Office Files Open in Desktop App by Default

To make Office files open in the desktop app by default, rigt click on an Office document and select Open. On the Open options window, select Open in app. This will make all Office documents open in the desktop app instead of the browser by default. If you would like to change this setting back at any time, simply repeat these steps and select Open in browser instead.

Opening a CSV File on a Mac

To open a CSV file on a Mac, you can use the default text editor, TextEdit, or a spreadsheet application such as Numbers.

1. Using TextEdit: Open the TextEdit application, select File > Open, and select the CSV file you want to open. The file will open in the TextEdit app where you can view and edit it.
2. Using Numbers: Drag-and-drop the CSV file onto the Numbers app icon on your Mac. This will open the data in a new sheet in Numbers where you can view and edit it.

If your CSV file includes comma separators instead of semi-colons, you may need to do a find & replace to convert them befoe opening in Numbers. To do this, open the .csv file in TextEdit, select Edit > Find > Find and Replace…, find “,” and replace with “;” , then save the .csv file and drag-and-drop it onto the Numbers app icon on your Mac.

Forcing Excel to Open CSV Files with Data in Columns

In order to force Excel to open CSV files with data arranged in columns, you must first open a new Excel sheet. Then, click the Data tab and select “From Text”. Select the CSV file that has the data clustered into one column. Make sure the File Origin is Unicode UTF-8, and then select Comma (which is Affinity’s default list separator). Finally, click Finish to arrange the data into columns.

Saving a CSV File in Excel Without Formatting Changes

Saving a .CSV file in Microsoft Excel without changing its format is quite simple. Begin by opening the .CSV document in Excel. Then click File and select Save As, followed by selecting File Type as CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) (.csv). Finally, click Save and if prompted, choose to keep the current format. This will save your .CSV file without changing the original format.

Conclusion

Excel is a powerful program that has become an invaluable tool for businesses and professionals alike. It provides a wide range of features and tools that can help streamline processes, simplify calculations, automate tasks, and visualize data. Excel is also user-friendly, making it easy to learn and use. Its flexibility allows users to customize the program according to their own neds and preferences. With Excel, users can quickly analyze complex data sets, create complex formulas, automate repetitive tasks, produce sophisticated charts and graphs, and much more. Excel is an essential component of modern business operations, making it an essential tool for success in today’s competitive world.

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Sanjeev Singh

Sanjeev is the tech editor at DeviceMAG. He has a keen interest in all things technology, and loves to write about the latest developments in the industry. He has a passion for quality-focused journalism and believes in using technology to make people's lives better. He has worked in the tech industry for over 15 years, and has written for some of the biggest tech blogs in the world. Sanjeev is also an avid photographer and loves spending time with his family.