Do you start with the following?

use strict;
use warnings;
use Win32::OLE;
use Win32::OLE::Const 'Microsoft Excel';
[download]

If you don't have that fourth line, you can't use xlSurface. Or you could try putting in 83, but if so, I advise commenting it to make it clear that it's supposed to be xlSurface. But it's easier to give you an accurate answer if you show minimal working code that replicates the problem.

Regards,

John Davies