Scripting chart creation in Excel

[bchaplin]

I just need to know if the following is possible with FM 8 or 8.5 (at work, we are still running version 6!)

We have a database which displays multiple records per person, in portals. By hand, I have exported this information into a tab-separated text file, imported it into Excel, and constructed a fairly complex graph based on it. Now my boss wants me to find a way to automate this process so that a novice could do it, relatively quickly, for hundreds of records. I can buy the latest version of Filemaker if this will help us accomplish the task. Is FM v.8 more powerful than v.6 for this kind of thing?

So, can I script not only the export of certain fields, but also their import into Excel and the chart creation, through some sort of AppleScript? We are running Mac OS X Tiger, but the end users are on Windows.

If there was a plug-in that would make the charts from within FM, that would be even better. I've googled but so far I haven't found anything that will graph the content of portals.