How to open an IIF file in Excel on a MAC

Legacy KB ID: 4383

Question

I have exported an IIF file from Reckon Hosted and transferred it to my local MAC PC.  Why can’t Microsoft Excel open it?

Answer

Unlike on a Windows environment, Excel on MAC cannot open an .IIF file.  As the IIF file format is a copy of the TXT format, renaming the IIF file from name.IIF to name.TXT will allow Excel on MAC to open it. 

Once a .TXT file has been opened in Excel on MAC and saved as a TXT file format, that file will open automatically in Excel on MAC.  Any new .IIF files must be renamed to .TXT first before Excel on MAC will open it. 

To open an IIF file for the first time on a MAC, please follow these steps:

1.    Save the IIF file to your MAC Desktop;

2.    Right-click the name.IIF file and select Get Info;

3.    Under Name & Extensions, delete the IIF extension and enter TXT;

4.    Close the Get Info dialog box and select Use .TXT to ‘Are you sure you want to change the extension from “.IIF” to “.TXT”’;

5.    Open Excel and click on the Open a Workbook icon (usually the 3rd from left on the Icon Menu line);

6.    Select the name.TXT (the renamed IIF file) from its location (eg: Desktop).  Excel will now start the Text Import Wizard;

7.    Under Original data type, select the Delimited radio button then click Finish;

8.    The file will open in the normal Excel format.  You can now work on the file;

9.    To close and save the file in the .TXT format, click on the floppy disk icon (usually the 4th from left on the Icon Menu line). 

Note:  When you make changes to an IIF file with the intention of importing back the changes into a Reckon hosted company file, you will need to follow steps 1-4 to rename the extension of the file from .TXT to .IIF.

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