I have a file that is protected by password in MS Excel. When I try to open it with ‘calc’ it won’t open. If I go into ‘File Explorer’ and select the file there it will open. If I open calc and try to go through the dropdown menu to ‘open’ the file shows there but won’t open. Nothing happens when I select it.
The problem is that LibreOffice Calc cannot directly open protected Excel archives (.xls or .xlsx) when using Microsoft Office’s strong encryption, AES from Excel 2007 later.
If you are turned on to MSExcel, you should view it as an archive in ODS format so that LibreOffice Calc can open it directly.
Thank you for your help. I had a feeling it was something like that, but I don’t know enough to find a work around.
Here is an example of a file password protected in Excel 2016.
Read/write password: “1”.
I see no problem opening this file in LO.
Password.xlsx (14 KB)
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The most secure password ever, no hacker would start with a single char. 
Oh, and I have such valuable information there. 
We know YOUR password 