Ok, not sure if anything here will actually help, but this is the definitive resource here on PM for working with spreadsheets: Index of Spreadsheet FAQs

If I find anything else in the meantime, I will update this node.

HTH,

Update:

• If you can do what you need to do in VBA, you can then Convert VBA to Perl (credit for this link goes to marto).
• As the link above implies, you can always automate Excel using Win32::OLE. If you do generate your HTML from within Excel, you'll undoubtedly want to run the result through Demoronizer and probably also HTML Tidy.
• Are you committed to HTML? PDF::Template might be useful otherwise...
• HTML::FromText may help... module review
• CGI & Spreadsheet::WriteExcel Module Help needed - Yes, it talks about CGI. But there are also many tips, interesting code, and good articles referenced in this thread. (updated link for the Perl Journal article on Spreadsheet::WriteExcel)