Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi , What I am about to ask, I know there is a simple solution in xml spread sheet email. I have a spread sheet where each tab sheet has a report from a perl script. But what I need is, is there any way where instead of opening a spread sheet file, I can send just the tabs to an outlook mail where just the 4 tabs appear and all the users have to do is click on each tab to see the respective report? Thank you, Do ask me if I am not clear

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Re: tabbed report
by andyford (Curate) on Feb 14, 2007 at 22:27 UTC

    I know that there is such a thing as HTML mail, but I stay away from it and I hate emailing spreadsheets around, so I'll just give you some food for alternate thought.
    I apologize in advance if your particular situation rules out something like this:
    Publish tables to a website and send the report recipients a link. Since most people will end up ignoring your email anyway, you'll save a lot of resources in your email system and newer recipients will have the archive of past reports easily available.

    non-Perl: Andy Ford

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Re: tabbed report
by CountZero (Bishop) on Feb 14, 2007 at 22:21 UTC
    How do you intend to link the tabs in your e-mail to the spreadsheet which you did not include in your e-mail? The recipient of your e-mail may be physically sitting on the other side of the world on a totally different type of computer / operating system / network whereas your spreadsheet sits happily on your computer / network (which for all we know may be protected by a firewall not allowing access from the outside).

    CountZero

    "If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler." - Conway's Law

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Re: tabbed report
by ww (Archbishop) on Feb 14, 2007 at 22:24 UTC
    It sounds as though you may be hoping to send tabular data: if so, most spreadsheets offer you some option to export sheet(s) or the full package to CSV.

    However, if you're trying to deal with heavily formatted data (color coded, fonts, etc), you're probably better off sending the sheet itself -- if the recipient has access to the same spreadsheet.

    But it's not clear "what" you want, really, nor "why."

    But, by way of injecting something perl-ish, and since you're talking about a windows mail client, you may find what you need in one of the many Excel modules (available from CPAN or - via ppm Active State, and may also profit from reading up on w32 modules, as well

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      The reason I ask is that long time ago I remember seeing a report which was completely tabbed. When we open the mail, we could see the tabs right in the mail. All we had to do was that click on each tab to see the various reports. Spread sheet is easy way out, but I want to make sure there is no other way to send out an mail.
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