    ABOUT

Exceltex is a LaTeX package combined with a helper program written in
Perl. It provides a easy to use yet powerfull and flexible way to get
data from Spreadsheets into LaTeX.

In difference to other existing solutions, exceltex does not seek for
making the creation of tables in LaTeX easier, but to get data from
Spreadsheets in into LaTeX as easy as possible.

The excel fileformat acts as an interface between the spreadsheet
application and exceltex beacause it is easily accessible via the
Spreadsheet::ParseExcel Perl module and because most spreadsheet
applications are able to read and write excel files.




    REQIREMENTS

Exceltex depends on the perl module Spreadsheet::ParseExcel and the
LaTeX Packages ulem and color.

Currently a Unix like operating system is required, cygwin on windows
should work also.





    LATEX COMMANDS

Exceltex provides two commands to include single cells and cell-ranges
for tabulars. Load the exceltex LaTeX package via
\usepackage{exceltex}.

   \inccell{foo.xls!results!B9}
   	includes cell B9 from sheet results in file foo.xls

   \inctab{foo.xls!results!B2!C15}
    	includes  the  14  rows between B2 and F15 from sheet results
	in file foo.xls in LaTeX' tabular format ('&' separated rows
        ended by \\)

For both commands you may omit specifying the file (foo.xls) if it has
the same basename (foo) as the LaTeX file (foo.tex).




    USAGE

Mark cells and tabulars for inclusion with the \incell and \inctab
commands. Then run latex, exceltex and latex again.

The following Example demonstrates the usage of exceltex:

--- snip ---
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[options]{exceltex}

\begin{document}

\title{a brief introduction to exceltex}
\maketitle

\section{including single cells}

You can include contents of cells with the \\inccell command. Example:
Cell A1 on sheet 'Sheet1' of file foo.xls is:
\inccell{foo.xls!Sheet1!A1}


\section{including tabulars}

this is as easy as including single cells.

\begin{tabular}{lll}
  \hline
  column 1 & colum 2 & colum 3 \\
  \hline
  \inctab{foo.xls!Sheet1!A1!C5}
  \hline
\end{tabular}

\end{document}
--- snap ---

now, run latex, then exceltex and latex again.

The \inctab command does nothing else than provide the requested cells
in LaTeX' tabular format - colums are separated with a '&', each line
is endet with a line break (\\). This gives you a maximum of
flexibility and the freedom to use whatever tabular package you want.


Currently one package option is supported.
\usepackage[cellrefs]{exceltex} will write cell data to files named by
filename, workbook and cell instead of sequentially numbered files.




    PROBLEMS

* Exceltex cannot read Excel files created by Spreadsheet::WriteExcel
  (see Spreadsheet::ParseExcel documentatin for details).

* Workbook names must not include problematic characters (LaTeX
  control Characters) (^,_,$,%,&,!). Just use Letters, Numbers and a
  Minus as spearator.  

* when using the cellrefs package option, whitespaces are also
  forbidden in workbook names and filenames. These are LaTeX
  limitations, i think.





    HOW IT WORKS

The first LaTeX run writes an entry for each \inctab, \inccell command
to a spearate index file (\jobname.exltx). This index is then read by
the exceltex helper script, which actually extracts the ordered data
and writes it to sequentially numbered files in the directory
\jobname-exltx.  The \inctab and \inccell are then simply including
these files via a \InputIfExists{} command on the following latex runs.




    TODO

Support for other formats than excels would be appreciating. There is
maybe a chance to get OpenOffice Calc working. There is now a module
OpenOffice::Parse::SXC on cpan which could to the job for Openoffice,
but it seems quite new and is not includeded in Ubuntu yet.  On the
other hand, support for different fileformats would yield a naming
problem, at the time i started with exceltex (in 2004) there was only
Spreadsheet::ParseExcel, so the name exceltex ....


The newest version of Exceltex is available at the following url:
http://www.physik.uni-freiburg.de/~doerr/exceltex




    COPYING

exceltex is Copyright 2004-2006 by Hans-Peter Doerr
<doerr@cip.physik.uni-freiburg.de>

This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There
is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

exceltex is distributed under the terms of the Gnu General Public
License (GPL) Version 2.  See COPYING for details.



README for exceltex version 0.5.1, Apr 30, 2006
