Automatic text generation

[Les Mikesell]

Paul Smith wrote:
> Dear All
> 
> I have a long spreadsheet as follows:
> 
> X1    X2    X3    X4    X5
> 2    6    1    1    4
> 2    1    3    1    5
> 3    3    3    4    6
> 4    2    5    3    4
> 6    6    5    1    1
> 5    6    4    1    3
> 
> [...]
> 
> For each number and for each X variable, there is a small piece of
> text. I am looking for a program to replace, for each spreadsheet line
> and for each number therein, the respective text and create a phrase
> concatenating the pieces of text corresponding to the numbers. Is
> there some tool to accomplish this goal?
> 

Perl is usually a good tool for text manipulation if you are willing to 
learn some programming, and there are available modules for just about 
anything you might need to do that can be found at 
http://search.cpan.org/ if they aren't already in the distribution.  If 
you search for 'spreadsheet' you'll find an assortment of modules that 
can read and write common spreadsheet formats.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com