python-excel/xlrd — Issue #1: encoding_override on xls that pretends to be new
Author: billWalker
Created: 2012-03-09 18:48:13+00:00
State: open

Hi,

I have a set of workbooks(which I unfortunately won't be able to include) that don't use Unicode, but report as biff_version > 80. As a result, xlrd.open_workbook will not work correctly because handle_format ignores encoding_override if the biff_version is > 80. These workbooks *do* still open in Excel somehow. I can confirm that opening one in Excel and saving in an earlier format will permit me to load it with xlrd.

Could you change line 502 of formatting.py:
```if bv >= 80:
```
to:
```if bv >= 80 and not self.encoding_override:
```
?

Thanks,
billW