Excel Services workbook larger than allowed to be opened in browser

Problem

Excel Web Services throws up the following error when you try to open an Excel file in the browser.

Excel Services workbook larger than allowed to be opened in browser

Cause

Excel Web Services has a default workbook size limit of 10MB. If you try to open a spreadsheet above this size limit, you will get the above error. The good news is that this limit can be configured.

Solution

You can increase the maximum workbook size in Central Administration.

1. Open Central Administration -> Application Management -> Manage Service Applications
2. Select your Excel Web Services Application
3. Go to Trusted File Locations
4. Choose the trusted file location of the file you are trying to open, most likely this should be ‘http://’.
5. Click on the drop down context menu under ‘http://’ and select ‘Edit’.
6. Scroll down the page to ‘Maximum Workbook Size’, increase the limit as required.