Performance degradation opening Excel workbooks

When are opening a workbook that contains at least one shape with text added to it you receive an error�"Excel found unreadable content in '[filename.xlsx]'. Do you want to recover the contents of this workbook? If you trust the source of this workbook, click Yes�.

After you click �Yes�, Excel could appear to hang before it opens the workbook and eventually deletes the text that causes the performance problem.

You may receive an additional alert similar to:

Excel was able to open the file by repairing or removing the unreadable content.
Repaired Records: Drawing from /xl/drawings/drawing1.xml part (Drawing shape)"

The issue can occur if the text in the Shapes contains XML tokens ('<' and '>', 'lt;' and '&gt;'). When opening a workbook in Excel 2010, Excel tries to read the content of that workbook and while reading the text (that contains XML tokens) from the Shapes, Excel encounters a performance problem and eventually deletes that text before completing the open process.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

Do not store XML data inside a graphical shape. XML data can be stored in Custom XML sections in a workbook.

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