The Ecotect help file only contains an examples that shows how to write into an Excel spreadsheet.
The Lua 4 script editor has access to the LuaCOM library, which also has ways of reading data from Excel.

Below is an example that reads a value v from an excel spreadsheet: You can just copy and paste it into the ecotect script editor.

-- [[ ------------------------------------------------------------------

-- AUTOMATE MICROSOFT EXCEL FROM ECOTECT.

-- ]] ------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Check if excel is already running.

xl = luacom.GetObject("Excel.Application")

if xl == nil then

xl = luacom.CreateObject("Excel.Application")

end

if xl then

-- Uncomment this to open a document.

-- xl.Workbooks:Open("C:\\My Documents\\Temp.xls")

-- or a new workbook.

book = xl.Workbooks:Add()

sheet = book.Worksheets(1)

--Make Excel visible.

xl.Visible = true;

end

for row=1,30 do

for col=1,30 do

print(row)

sheet.Cells(row, col).Value2 = col + row

end

end

local range = sheet:Range("A1")

for row=1,30 do

for col=1,30 do

--!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

--THIS IS HOW YOU READ AN EXCEL VALUE INTO LUA:

local v = sheet.Cells(row, col).Value2

--!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

if v > 50 then

local cell = range:Offset(row-1, col-1)

cell:Select()

xl.Selection.Interior.Color = 65535

end

end

end

-- release COM objects

book = nil

xl = nil