>Hello all:
>
>We like to compose our reports as Excel files.
>
>Currently we hard code our reports as comma separated values and then tinker with the resulting excel file to add the excel formatting using the excel object functions.
>
>Would anyone know of any third party tools that would make this easier?
>
>Bruce Strom

Actually, OLE Automation makes Excel easy to manipulate.

Here's a start:

oExcel = CREATE("Excel.Application")
oExcel.VISIBLE = .T.
oExcel.SheetsInNewWorkbook = 1
oExcel.Workbooks.Add()

There are books on this subject, but I've found it fairly easy to learn Excel's language from MS's VBAXL8.HLP file. I'm not sure where I got this from - if you can't find it, I can send it to you.