issue importing excel data into Calc 7

users
#1

In order to obtain data to serve as a basis for Calc 7.0.0.3 charts I
need to import excel formatted sheets from an oracle query program. I
have very limited control over the data source and am pretty much
obliged to take it as it comes. Below is a snippet of what gets
imported.

Report Type : StationReport <table cellspacing="0".the and rules="all"
border="1" style="border-collapse:collapse

There's a lot more like this. The import fails due to excessive
characters per cell

This is not useful. While casting about for some solution I tried to use
gnumeric 1.12.46 and the import proceeds as I would like (no messages
or errors) and I get useful cells of data. I can in principle (and in
practise) export the sheet from gnumeric to file x.xls then import
x.xls into Calc 7 and then use calc's chart facilities, which is the
object. The number of imports for many sheets makes this
laborious.

I would much prefer to not have the intermediate step. Is anyone able to
suggest some setting that would allow a direct import of the excel
sheet?

Thanks,

Dave