Formatted Excel Sheet

[datalink]

I'm not sure what the best way to do this is....

We have data that is created within an FMP based system. One department would like to be able to regularly export found sets into excel, however since the resulting excel documents are forwarded on to clients they are fairly heavily formatted. There are some breaks and color etc. On the formatted excel sheet the first 30 rows or so are taken up with header type information.

I'm not aware of a way to apply substantial excel formatting within FMP. I'm looking for workflow suggestions. Perhaps once records are exported into an excel sheet they could be imported into a blank formatted excel document? I'm not very versed in Excel. Is that even an option? Other suggestions?

Thank in advance.

[comment]

the resulting excel documents are forwarded on to clients they are fairly heavily formatted.

If you possibly can, use PDF to forward reports to your clients. Else be prepared for an "adventure" - meaning either a plugin or exporting as XML with a custom stylesheet.

[datalink]

The client's interact with the Excel documents so PDF is not an option.

So it looks like an adventure. Ungh! Do you have a plugin recommendation?

[comment]

Sorry, I am firmly in the XML/XSLT camp... I think 360Works Scribe can do this.

[bcooney]

Could you use FM as an ODBC source to your Excel template? Or have a worksheet in the workbook that contains the raw data and reference those values in your formatted worksheets.

You'll need an Excel person on this project.