Your question is a little ambiguous, but if you are dealing with Excel there are several excellent modules that can help you. The only question that I have is if you actually need Perl for this task? Is this something you are automating or can you just save it in a CSV file?

Spreadsheet::ParseExcel is supposed to do a good job of reading in Excel documents. I hear it does a good job with things like newlines embedded in cells that are otherwise hard to code for.

I can personally vouch for Spreadsheet::WriteExcel as being a very reliable tool for creating Excel (and StarOffice) readable spreadsheets. My co-workers looked at me bug-eyed in awe when I showed them that Perl could output Excel. "Yeah, Perl can do that," is my motto these days. :)

Good luck,
{NULE}
--
http://www.nule.org