On getting this error, spreadsheet could not be opened and you will face problems in accessing the stored data. The most probable cause of the occurrence of 'document caused a serious error' while opening the Excel spreadsheet is that the spreadsheet application is damaged. In most of the cases damage occurs due to accidental system shutdown, software crash, virus infection, etc. If you are unable to open spreadsheet even after two or more attempts, the application adds the file to the list of disabled files. Disabled files cannot be opened and throws error messages similar to the above mentioned error.

Causes:

This error generally occurs due to interrupted save process. Some other reasons responsible for this error are virus attack, unexpected system shutdown, application malfunction etc. Ejection of removable media like CD, failure of network connection while storing the spreadsheet in network drive also causes this error.

In order to recover your critical files stored in the spreadsheet, you will have to remove the spreadsheet file from the list of disabled files. For doing you have to find the list of disabled files by clicking Help and then About Microsoft Office Excel. After that you will find a list on clicking the Disabled items box. After that remove the file from the list by clicking 'Enable'. This will resolve your problem.

          

If using the aforesaid methods you are still unable to resolve 'document caused a serious error', you can use third-party excel repair applications which completely repairs the damaged excel file. These applications use innovative and powerful scanning algorithms to repair the corrupted Excel files and does not alter the original content or setting of the file.