Most of your post is "blah blah blah Ginger blah blah blah" to me because I don't know the subject, but just a thought:

>this only can find integer results from 
>integer inputs
[download]

Might it be possible to multiply each number until it no longer has a decimal, do the calculations, then re-correct?

Also, if it does turn out that only Excel can do what you want, could you approach it another way: get Perl to talk to a local copy of Excel for that portion of the processing?

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“Every bit of code is either naturally related to the problem at hand, or else it's an accidental side effect of the fact that you happened to solve the problem using a digital computer.”
M-J D