XLS and ODS explained
The pre-2007 Excel format is a binary structure limited to 65,536 rows and 256 columns — limits modern datasets routinely exceed.
ODS is the OpenDocument spreadsheet format, the open-standard counterpart to XLSX used by LibreOffice Calc.
- Where XLS files come from
- Spreadsheets from Excel 2003 or earlier, and some legacy export systems.
- Where ODS is used
- LibreOffice Calc and open-standards environments.