What is rubyspreadsheet?
========================
This is a port of John McNamara's Perl module "Spreadsheet::WriteExcel".  It
is a port of version .26, not the latest version.  It allows you to generate
Microsoft Excel compatible spreadsheets (in '95 format) on *any* platform.
These spreadsheets are viewable with most other popular spreadsheet programs,
including gnumeric.

What it doesn't do
==================
There is no support for formulas (yet).
There is no support for worksheets greater than 7 MB.
You cannot read/parse an existing spreadsheet with this package.

Why doesn't it support formulas yet?
====================================
Simple formulas are easy enough, but to handle complex formulas in a
reasonable fashion requires a parser.  John used "Parse::RecDescent" in his
own code to parse formulas and I will need something similar to do so as well.
Since I'm not too good at parsing, and I don't personally have the need for
formula support, I'm more or less waiting for a patch.

What's up with the 7 MB limitation?
===================================
Getting past the 7 MB limit requires an interface to the MS structured storage
format.  This doesn't exist (yet) in Ruby.  For more on structured storage
documents, download this: http://www.i3a.org/pdf/wg1n1017.pdf (there's a
structured storage section).  That, and there is information about structured
storage on the MSDN website at http://microsoft.msdn.com

Where can I find out more?
==========================
See the documentation in the 'doc' directory for more details.

How do I install it?
====================
Read the 'INSTALL' file for directions.

UPDATE: 11-Jun-2004
===================
Version 0.2.9 will be the last release for the Excel 95 format.  John McNamara
has released version 2.0x of Spreadsheet::WriteExcel which supports the Excel 97
format.

Consequently, the next release (2.0.0) of this package will use the Excel 97
format as well.  I will still take patches for the 0.x.x series as needed and
apply them in CVS, but there won't be any more file releases using the old
format.
