[URL]http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-pexcel/?dwzone=linux[/URL]

Using the Spreadsheet::WriteExcel and Spreadsheet::ParseExcel modules
Teodor Zlatanov (tzz@bu.edu)
Programmer, Gold Software Systems
September 2001

Only recently have the doors been open to Microsoft Excel, the most popular spreadsheet application for the desktop. This article takes a look at reading and writing Excel files in Windows and Linux, using Perl and a few simple modules. The author of this article, Teodor Zlatanov, is an expert in Perl who has been working in the community since 1992 and who specializes in, among other things, open source work in text parsing.
Parsing Excel files presents a conundrum any way you look at it. Until last year, UNIX modules were completely unavailable, and data from Excel files for Windows could only be retrieved with the Win32::OLE modules. But things have finally changed, thanks to two Perl hackers and a lot of volunteer help and contributions!