i suppose categories was my other question. i'm pretty sure i get what these functions are supposed to do and per the example here: http://search.cpan.org/dist/Spreadsheet-WriteExcel/lib/Spreadsheet/WriteExcel/Examples.pm#Example:_chart_stock.pl it should be possible to do what i want. i'm obviously just doing something wrong :) neither is being set to what i want. my spreadsheet looks like this

x      | date 1 | date 2 | date 3 |
name   |        |        |        |
data 1 | ####   | ####   | ####   |
data 2 | ####   | ####   | ####   |
data 3 | ####   | ####   | ####   |
       |        |        |        |
name2  |        |        |        |
data 1 | ####   | ####   | ####   |
etc
[download]

Spreadsheet::WriteExcel::Utility::xl_range_formula()