Spreadsheet Excel Writer: Workaround for formula error?

[mpemburn]

Hi,

I've been beating my brains against a problem with Spreadsheet Excel Writer "writeFormula" method and I'm hoping someone here knows of a workaround. Here's the deal:

When my users select a range of records in my data-based application, I use Spreadsheet Excel Writer to create a bunch of worksheets in a single workbook. Each worksheet has a number of column totals that I need to reference in a "Totals" worksheet. So, let's say that the "Policy Premiums" total appears in cell C8 of worksheet "Fred_Jones". I want to go to a given cell on the "Totals" worksheet and insert the reference:

=Fred_Jones!$C$8

I can do this manually and it works like a champ. When attempt this with $worksheet->writeFormula, I get the following in the cell instead:

Syntax error: ), lookahead: , current char: 0

I've Googled this error and it looks as if it's an open bug that goes back to sometime in May of 2005. I really, really need to be able to add this functionality to my app -- does anyone have an idea of what to do to make it work?

Thanks in advace,

Mark