this isn't really a PHP question...it's more client-side. Your browser is the agent that deals with microsoft excel and you don't really have any control over how your browser may or may not cooperate with Excel. In other words, how excel and the browser cooperate might differ from browser to browser.
That said, I use internet explorer 6. i selected a column and pasted it right into the form that you use to post stuff here at phpbuilders.com. the result is each row, separated by paragraph marks.
row1
row2
row3
row4
row5
row6
if i paste 2 columns, i get:
row1 col2
row2 col2
row3 col2
row4 col2
row5 col2
row6 col2
which appears to be tab-delimited rows separated by paragraph returns.
if the data in your spreadsheet doesn't contain tab characters or newline/carriage return characters (which is entirely possible), you might be able to easily parse out the results of the form when it's posted.
create a form with <TEXTAREA> tags in it. try pasting some data into excel from it and then looking at the resulting data.
you can explode() the entire text area data into rows like this:
$rows = explode("\n", $_POST['my_text_area_name']);
note that you might have to explode on "\r\n" (or is it "\n\r") because macs and pcs are different somehow...not sure how this will work...you'll have to experiment with different client platforms and browsers.
and then explode() each row into individual cells with this:
$cells = Array();
for($i=0; $i<sizeof($rows);$i++) {
$cells[$i] = explode("\t",$row[$i]);
}
keep in mind, though, that you have excel talking to the browser and how they share data is completely beyond your control unless you are forcing your visitors to use a particular browser and/or spreadsheet program.
