>Dan,
>
>>That is not clear. We're trying to determine what the width of excel columns is based on. I thought it was pts 1/72 of an inch.
>
>You're right, I found a article in the MS knowledge base: Q76388. It's about the relationship between points,inches and twips.
>
>Another article explain how to convert pixels to twips: Q94927. Though the examples is written for MS Access, it easy to convert it into VFP code.
>
>Good luck,
>
>Walter

We tracked down an article in the kb. Q130050. It turns out that "Microsoft Excel uses the number of digits (specifically, the number of zeros) using the Normal style font as the measurement to determine column widths.

Using this we can retrieve from Excel what the normal font is and using fontmetrics determine what the width is and then just compare the text we're adding to the cell. Additionally we'll use the shrink to fit.