Re: Writing to Spreadsheets in PERL...

From the Spreadsheet::WriteExcel manual page:

       The following limits are imposed by Excel:

           Description                          Limit
           -----------------------------------  ------
           Maximum number of chars in a string  32767
           Maximum number of columns            256
           Maximum number of rows               65536
           Maximum chars in a sheet name        31
           Maximum chars in a header/footer     254

So, if you want more than 32767 characters in a cell, Excel isn't the appropriate format.

Comment on Re: Writing to Spreadsheets in PERL...

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Re^2: Writing to Spreadsheets in PERL... by biswanath_c (Beadle) on May 10, 2010 at 14:23 UTC
Thanks for the immediate reply... One of my friends was suggesting that i should write into XLSX files instead of XLS files to overcome this issue. Would you know anything about this? Would XLSX help me resolve this issue? How do I write into XLSX files from PERL?	[reply]
Re^3: Writing to Spreadsheets in PERL... by Corion (Patriarch) on May 10, 2010 at 14:29 UTC
Have you tried searching CPAN for XLSX? Still, (Excel) Spreadsheets are for presenting tabular information. It makes no sense to put so much information into one cell.	[reply]
Re^3: Writing to Spreadsheets in PERL... by marto (Cardinal) on May 10, 2010 at 14:29 UTC
But never write "PERL", because...	[reply]
Re^3: Writing to Spreadsheets in PERL... by roboticus (Chancellor) on May 10, 2010 at 14:31 UTC
biswanath_c: If it's an Excel limitation, then you may be able to put the data into an XLSX file, but then Excel will probably complain when you try to load the spreadsheet. ...roboticus	[reply]
Re^4: Writing to Spreadsheets in PERL... by moritz (Cardinal) on May 10, 2010 at 14:34 UTC
I'm not quite sure, but I think XLSX is a newer file format than the excel files that our beloved Perl module support, and newer versions of excel are said not to suffer from the same size limits. Still I agree that a database is more appropriate.	[reply]
Re^3: Writing to Spreadsheets in PERL... by JavaFan (Canon) on May 10, 2010 at 14:29 UTC
No idea. All I know is that Spreadsheet::{Read\|Write}Excel doesn't do XLSX files. I always send them back if $WORK gives me one.	[reply]
Re^3: Writing to Spreadsheets in PERL... by blakew (Monk) on May 10, 2010 at 22:06 UTC
You might try Spreadsheet::WriteExcelXML which has the same API but fewer features than Spreadsheet::WriteExcel. The author recommends this module for exceeding the row limits imposed by .xls, perhaps you can exceed the character-cell limit also. Alternatively, if you have Excel 2007 you can use Win32::OLE and invoke Microsoft's API to make xlsx files.	[reply]