Outlook 2007 supports the previous file formats which uses the file extension .xls. Excel 2007 uses a new format which has the file extensions of .xlsx, .xlsm, or .xlsb.

Sometimes, it happens that when you try to import data from Microsoft Office Excel 2007 worksheet, MS office Outlook 2007 could not recognize the file and gives the following error message:

My excel workbook cannot be used as important source

Since, Office Outlook 2007 is not compatible with the file formats used by Excel 2007 it does not support opening files in these file formats. Some other reasons responsible for this error are failure of network connection, application malfunctioning, excel corruption etc while storing the spreadsheet in network drive.

Solutions for ‘My excel workbook cannot be used as important source’ error:

In order to solve this problem you can save your Office Excel 2007 worksheet in such file formats which are used by previous releases of Excel. And after that, import your necessary data from that file to Outlook.

This can be done in the following ways:

• Open the workbook which you want to import to office outlook 2007.
• After that click on MS office button and point to the arrow save as.
• In the filename box, type a new name of the workbook and in the save as type list, click on Excel 97-2003 workbook.

However, if you will save the workbook in a format other than Excel 2007 format, all the features and formatting related to Excel 2007 will not be retained. You can also try to resolve the error ‘My Excel 2007 workbook cannot be used as an import source’ manually by going to File menu. After going to File menu, click on Open. In the Open dialog box, select the file which you want to open and after that click on arrow next to Open button. After that click on Open and Repair utility of excel.

          

However if you could not solve the problem by using aforesaid methods, you can take the help of third-party excel repair applications to repair corrupted Excel file. These third-party applications uses advanced scanning techniques to scan and repair the corrupted Excel file. These applications provide safe, efficient and complete repair of your damaged Excel files. It supports almost all Excel versions like 2007, 2003, 2002 and 2000 and is compatible with Windows Vista, XP, 2003, 2000 and NT.