TurboFiles

XLSX to TXT Converter

TurboFiles offers an online XLSX to TXT Converter.
Just drop files, we'll handle the rest

XLSX

XLSX is a modern spreadsheet file format developed by Microsoft, part of the Office Open XML standard. It stores data in a structured grid of cells, supporting multiple worksheets, complex formulas, charts, and data visualization. Unlike older XLS formats, XLSX uses XML-based compression, resulting in smaller file sizes and improved compatibility across different platforms and software.

Advantages

Supports large datasets, advanced formulas, multiple worksheets, data visualization, compact file size, cross-platform compatibility, robust security features, and integration with data analysis tools like Power BI and Excel. Enables complex calculations and dynamic data representation.

Disadvantages

Can become performance-heavy with extremely large datasets, potential compatibility issues with older software versions, complex formatting can be lost when converting between different applications, and potential security risks if macros are enabled without proper verification.

Use cases

XLSX is extensively used in financial modeling, business reporting, data analysis, budgeting, inventory management, project tracking, and scientific research. It's a standard format for accountants, analysts, researchers, managers, and professionals who need to organize, calculate, and visualize complex numerical data with advanced computational capabilities.

TXT

A plain text file format (.txt) that stores unformatted, human-readable text using standard character encoding like ASCII or Unicode. It contains pure textual data without any styling, formatting, or embedded objects, making it universally compatible across different operating systems and text editing applications.

Advantages

Extremely lightweight, universally supported, minimal storage requirements, easily readable by humans and machines, compatible across platforms, simple to create and edit, no complex formatting overhead, fast to process.

Disadvantages

No support for rich text formatting, limited visual presentation, cannot embed images or complex objects, lacks advanced styling capabilities, requires additional processing for complex document needs.

Use cases

Plain text files are widely used for configuration settings, programming source code, log files, readme documents, simple note-taking, data exchange between systems, and storing raw textual information. Developers, system administrators, and writers frequently utilize .txt files for lightweight, portable text storage.

Frequently Asked Questions

XLSX files are complex, compressed XML-based spreadsheet formats supporting multiple data types and sheets, while TXT files are simple, uncompressed plain text files with linear, single-layer content. The conversion process involves parsing structured spreadsheet data and extracting text content, which fundamentally transforms the file's technical composition.

Users convert XLSX to TXT to simplify data for text-based processing, improve cross-platform compatibility, reduce file complexity, and enable easier reading or parsing in text-based environments. This conversion is particularly useful when working with legacy systems, performing data analysis, or preparing documents for text-only platforms.

Common conversion scenarios include extracting contact lists for mail merging, converting financial transaction logs for accounting software, preparing configuration files for programming environments, generating simple reports, and creating human-readable data summaries from complex spreadsheets.

Converting from XLSX to TXT typically results in significant quality reduction. Formatting, cell styles, formulas, and multi-sheet structures are completely lost. Only raw text content is preserved, which means numeric formatting, color coding, and complex data relationships are eliminated during the conversion process.

XLSX to TXT conversion usually reduces file size by 50-80%, as the compressed XML structure is replaced with unformatted plain text. A 1MB Excel spreadsheet might compress to 200-500KB of plain text, depending on the original document's complexity and content density.

The conversion process cannot preserve spreadsheet-specific features like formulas, cell references, conditional formatting, or multi-sheet structures. Complex data types such as dates, currencies, and calculated fields will be simplified to their displayed text representation.

Avoid converting XLSX to TXT when maintaining original data structure is crucial, when working with complex financial models, when preserving formatting is important, or when the spreadsheet contains interdependent formulas that define the data's meaning.

For more robust data preservation, consider using CSV format for tabular data, keeping the original XLSX file, or using specialized data transformation tools that maintain more of the original spreadsheet's characteristics and structure.