Assuming you're attempting to read and write standard text (Ie. not binary/graphic) data from Excel worksheets, this is actually fairly doable in PHP and Perl.

A recent article by Mike Diehl at Linux Journal peaked my interest in this. He shows off some of the features of the Spreadsheet::ParseExcel Perl module, which can be used to pull data and even formatting information from cells in an Excel worksheet. Once you have your hands on the data, you can do what you want with it: output it to XML, toss it in a database for subsequent querying, or even convert it into other Excel documents (oh, the shame).

Perl Excel Libraries and Information
Spreadsheet:ParseExcel - Read from Excel 95/97/2000 documents
Spreadsheet:WriteExcel - Write to Excel 97/2000/2002/2003 documents
Linux Journal - Reading Native Excel Files in Perl

There are libraries for dealing with native Excel files in PHP as well. The following two seem to be the only options for binary Excel documents.

PHP Excel Libraries
PHP Excel_Reader - Read Excel 95 and 97 documents
Spreadsheet_Excel_Writer - Write Excel 5.0 documents
Reading and Writing Spreadsheets with PHP

With the most recent version of Excel, there is an XML file format option that will allow you to read and write data in a worksheet by directly interacting with the saved file's DOM. IBM has a document that details doing this with PHP, and it would be straightforward to apply this technique to Perl as well.

Read/Write XML Excel Data in PHP

Finally, if all you need to do is output a document that can be read in Excel, a standard CSV-format file will usually do the trick. Escaping can be a bit tricky, however, and my preferred format has become a plain-old HTML table. Just create a file that contains a TABLE element (no BODY or HTML tags necessary), with any number of TR rows and html-escaped data in the TDs, and save it out. If you use the XLS file extension, it will open directly in Excel with a double-click and Excel never seems to mind reading in the data.

Do you have any other Excel programming hacks? Give us a shout in the comments.

Peter Rakos wrote an article for Gamasutra today which demonstrates how to hack yourself a simple 3D engine by subverting an Excel worksheet. It's not going to win any FPS awards, but the fact that you can even get Excel to draw raw shapes blows my mind.

In his demo, the worksheet is used to calculate values for all the polygon vertices and a very small macro loop draws the resulting mesh to the screen.

After downloading the source XLS, run the demo by hitting alt-F8 (option-F8 in Mac Excel). You'll find the code under the "Tools->Macro->Macros" menu.

Microsoft Excel: Revolutionary 3D Game Engine - Link
Peter's Example 3D Excel files - Link

Here's Hack #111, Display a "Please Wait" Message, from David and Raina Hawley's Excel Hacks, 2nd Edition. Millions of users create and share Excel spreadsheets every day, but few go deeply enough to learn the techniques that will make their work much easier. Yet there are many ways to take advantage of Excel's sophisticated capabilities without spending hours on advanced study. In Excel Hacks, you'll learn how to:

• Reduce workbook and worksheet frustration--manage how users interact with worksheets, find and highlight information, and deal with debris and corruption.
• Analyze and manage data--extend and automate these features, moving beyond the limited tasks they were designed to perform.
• Hack names--learn not only how to name cells and ranges, but also how to create names that adapt to the data in your spreadsheet.
• Get the most out of PivotTables--avoid the problems that make them frustrating and learn how to extend them.
• Create customized charts--tweak and combine Excel's built-in charting capabilities.
• Hack formulas and functions--subjects range from moving formulas around to dealing with datatype issues to improving recalculation time.
• Make the most of macros--including ways to manage them and use them to extend other features.
• Use the enhanced capabilities of Microsoft Office 2007 to combine Excel with Word, Access, and Outlook.

Hack #111: Display a "Please Wait" Message - Link

Related:

• Excel Hacks, 2nd Edition @ the Maker Store - Buy now
• Excel Hacks, Second Edition--New from O'Reilly: Hook Up with Excel Expert Hackers - Press Release

Here's Hack #87, Display Negative Time Values, from David and Raina Hawley's Excel Hacks, 2nd Edition. Millions of users create and share Excel spreadsheets every day, but few go deeply enough to learn the techniques that will make their work much easier. Yet there are many ways to take advantage of Excel's sophisticated capabilities without spending hours on advanced study. In Excel Hacks, you'll learn how to:

• Reduce workbook and worksheet frustration--manage how users interact with worksheets, find and highlight information, and deal with debris and corruption.
• Analyze and manage data--extend and automate these features, moving beyond the limited tasks they were designed to perform.
• Hack names--learn not only how to name cells and ranges, but also how to create names that adapt to the data in your spreadsheet.
• Get the most out of PivotTables--avoid the problems that make them frustrating and learn how to extend them.
• Create customized charts--tweak and combine Excel's built-in charting capabilities.
• Hack formulas and functions--subjects range from moving formulas around to dealing with datatype issues to improving recalculation time.
• Make the most of macros--including ways to manage them and use them to extend other features.
• Use the enhanced capabilities of Microsoft Office 2007 to combine Excel with Word, Access, and Outlook.

Hack #87: Display Negative Time Values - Link

Related:

• Excel Hacks, 2nd Edition @ the Maker Store - Buy now
• Excel Hacks, Second Edition--New from O'Reilly: Hook Up with Excel Expert Hackers - Press Release

Here's Hack #21, Highlight Every Other Row or Column, from David and Raina Hawley's Excel Hacks, 2nd Edition. Millions of users create and share Excel spreadsheets every day, but few go deeply enough to learn the techniques that will make their work much easier. Yet there are many ways to take advantage of Excel's sophisticated capabilities without spending hours on advanced study. In Excel Hacks, you'll learn how to:

• Reduce workbook and worksheet frustration--manage how users interact with worksheets, find and highlight information, and deal with debris and corruption.
• Analyze and manage data--extend and automate these features, moving beyond the limited tasks they were designed to perform.
• Hack names--learn not only how to name cells and ranges, but also how to create names that adapt to the data in your spreadsheet.
• Get the most out of PivotTables--avoid the problems that make them frustrating and learn how to extend them.
• Create customized charts--tweak and combine Excel's built-in charting capabilities.
• Hack formulas and functions--subjects range from moving formulas around to dealing with datatype issues to improving recalculation time.
• Make the most of macros--including ways to manage them and use them to extend other features.
• Use the enhanced capabilities of Microsoft Office 2007 to combine Excel with Word, Access, and Outlook.

Hack #21: Highlight Every Other Row or Column - Link

Related:

• Excel Hacks, 2nd Edition @ the Maker Store - Buy now
• Excel Hacks, Second Edition--New from O'Reilly: Hook Up with Excel Expert Hackers - Press Release

Here's Hack #15, Reduce Workbook Bloat, from David and Raina Hawley's Excel Hacks, 2nd Edition. Millions of users create and share Excel spreadsheets every day, but few go deeply enough to learn the techniques that will make their work much easier. Yet there are many ways to take advantage of Excel's sophisticated capabilities without spending hours on advanced study. In Excel Hacks, you'll learn how to:

• Reduce workbook and worksheet frustration--manage how users interact with worksheets, find and highlight information, and deal with debris and corruption.
• Analyze and manage data--extend and automate these features, moving beyond the limited tasks they were designed to perform.
• Hack names--learn not only how to name cells and ranges, but also how to create names that adapt to the data in your spreadsheet.
• Get the most out of PivotTables--avoid the problems that make them frustrating and learn how to extend them.
• Create customized charts--tweak and combine Excel's built-in charting capabilities.
• Hack formulas and functions--subjects range from moving formulas around to dealing with datatype issues to improving recalculation time.
• Make the most of macros--including ways to manage them and use them to extend other features.
• Use the enhanced capabilities of Microsoft Office 2007 to combine Excel with Word, Access, and Outlook.

Hack #15: Reduce Workbook Bloat - Link

Related:

• Excel Hacks, 2nd Edition @ the Maker Store - Buy now
• Excel Hacks, Second Edition--New from O'Reilly: Hook Up with Excel Expert Hackers - Press Release

The second edition of Excel Hacks is out now, and it's our biggest hacks books yet, with over 130 hacks covering many versions of Excel: Excel 2004 for the Mac, as well as Excel XP, 2003, and 2007. David and Raina Hawley's new edition provides a resourceful, roll-up-your-sleeves guide that gives you nonobvious solutions to a whole pile of interesting Excel problems.

It's available now from bookstores, and you can also find it in the Make store.

Resources

• O'Reilly FYI: Have fun with Excel - Link
  
• Sample Chapter - Link
  

Are you limited in what games your company's IT/IS department will leave installed on your work machine? Well, it seems very unlikely they will take Excel away from you. And Excel, among other things, is an interesting development platform for some fairly amusing programs.

So, enter Excel Games -- the site for games and play inside a program they'll never uninstall. Try them out, and you will find that the Excel version is often as good as any stand alone application!

There are really two hacks here: 1) The Excel/VB engine is completely subverted into a platform for game development and 2) since Excel is an essential business tool, identifying it as a game engine ensures that cubicle occupants everywhere can get their fix, despite the most heinous of firewall and software installation restrictions.

Excel Games - non-productive use of essential software! -Link

You can easily get Excel to act as a live stock RSS news reader with a free add-on. What's cool about this, as opposed to using a regular news reader, is that you can have it update the news depending on the stock symbol you are interested in. Plus, you can also add live stock quotes as well.

And simply by pressing F9, your news will udpate to the latest news about your stocks!

instructables : Hacking Microsoft Office Excel to read live RSS stock news feeds - Link.

More:

Esquotes - Link.