Error message when you try to view an Excel 2007 workbook that contains a formula that uses a caret operator in Excel Services: "The workbook may be in an unsupported file format, or it may be corrupt"

Consider the following scenario. You create a workbook in Microsoft Office Excel 2007, and then you save the workbook in Excel workbook format (.xlsx). One or more cells in the workbook contain a formula that uses the caret (^) operator to mean exponentiation. For example, the workbook contains the following:You publish the workbook to Excel Services, a feature of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. In this scenario, Excel Services does not load the workbook when you use a Web browser to try to view the workbook that you published to the server. Instead, you receive the following error message:

This issue occurs if a space character is in front of the caret operator in the formula.

To work around this issue, use one of the following procedures:

• Remove the space character that is in front of the caret operator in the formula.
• Save the workbook in the non-XML binary workbook format (.xlsb). Then, publish the workbook to the server.

For more information about Excel Services, visit the following Microsoft Web sites: