Not sure what your collecting or how the excel module works but could you not just watch for the longest string length and use that value at the end? 
my $col_width = 10; #default
...#code
if (length($variable) > $col_width) {
    my $col_width = length($variable);
}
#set column width

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In reply to Re: Writing Excel Spreadsheets -- suggestions sought by glenn
in thread Writing Excel Spreadsheets -- suggestions sought by blue_cowdawg

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