>You can make sure they have it on their machine by making it a part of the package when you quote the job. How much does Excel cost? A couple hundred bucks. If it going to make your life easier and fulfill your clients requirements, you can't afford not to include it. Therefore, no more excuses.

Jacci, I heard the same thing at DevCon, and wondered how you bid a project that may be used by 10 or 1000 users if Excel is required. I've found it simpler to discuss this up front with the client. Frequently they 'discover' that the users who need the reporting capabilities also need Excel for other reasons.

This was particularly important when a client was bought by a much larger company. My software will soon be installed at multiple sites, and their only cost was a couple of hours of training time + the hardware. I sure am glad I didn't have to tell them to buy 100 copies of Excel!

Just my $.02 US
Barbara