excel automation speed ?

[phinds]

I'm using VB to stuff data into an existing excel spreadsheet, and I can hardly believe how SLOW it is. On a 750Mhz PIII, I get 180 cells per second. Does anyone have any idea why this is so slow?

My code is below if you're interested.

'
' excel data stuff --- shows that on this machine (750Mhz PIII) you can
' stuff about 180 cells per second, which is STUNNINGLY slow based on
' the processor speed; SO ... it must be that there is a connection that
' gets established for every cell stuff & if that connection could be
' kept open, it might take WAY less time to stuff all the data
'
' the doevents does not make any difference in the amount of time the
' whole thing takes, but without the doevents, the timer counts never
' happen
'
Option Explicit
Public xlApp As Excel.Application
Public xlBook As Excel.Workbook
Public xlSheet As Excel.Worksheet
Public xlRows As Integer
Public seconds As Integer
'
'
'
Private Sub cmdDoIt_Click()
    Dim ix As Integer, iy As Integer
    Dim row As Integer, col As Integer
    
 
    Set xlApp = New Excel.Application
    Set xlBook = xlApp.Workbooks.Open(App.Path & "\Book1.xls", , True)
    Set xlSheet = xlBook.Worksheets("Data")
    
    seconds = 0
    For ix = 0 To 600
        row = 2 + ix
        For iy = 0 To 36
            col = 2 + iy
'            xlSheet.Cells(row, col).Value = CStr(iy + ix * 10) ' as strings
            xlSheet.Cells(row, col).Value = iy + ix * 10    ' as integers
        Next iy
    Next ix
 
    xlApp.Workbooks.Close
    xlApp.Quit
    Set xlApp = Nothing
End Sub