title: Reading an .xls file in python (using pandas read_excel)
body: <p>So I have an <code>.xls</code> file which I am able to open with Excel and also with Notepad (can see the numbers along with some other text) but I cannot read the file using pandas module. </p>
  
  <pre><code>df = pd.read_excel(r'"R:\Project\Projects\429 - Buchner Höhe\Analysis Data\scada\20171101.xls"',parse_dates=[[0,1,2,3]]) 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The error which pops up is as follows:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>XLRDError: Unsupported format, or corrupt file: Expected BOF record;
    found b'\x03\x11\x0b\x02 \x01\x00\x00'</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>I tried renaming the file to <code>.xlsx</code> using <code>os.rename</code>, it still does not work.</p>