If you are trying to make output from a CGI open in excel, you could output a CSV (comma separated values) file, or use Spreadsheet::WriteExcel to output an excel file.

Remember to use use Content-type: application/vnd.ms-excel (or text/x-csv) instead of text/html in your CGI. You might also have to name your cgi .csv or .xls for braindead IE to work properly, since a lot of times it doesn' respect the Content-Disposition filename correctly. Sample code -

#! /usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use DBI;

my $dbh =  DBI->connect( @connect_param );
my $data = $dbh->selectall_arrayref( 'SELECT * FROM country_info' );

print "Content-Type: text/x-csv\n\n";
for (@$data) 
{
  print join ",", map { "\"$_\"" } @$_;
  print "\n";
}
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Tiago