Spreadsheet_excel_writer Speed Issues

Hello, I have a script which takes data and writes various formats etc. There are about 40 rows x 12 or so columns written for each worksheet. Because of the way the spreadsheet applies format objects to a particular cell, I had to include about 35+ different formats (borders (dotted, single, double), font size, number formats etc.). Currently using php5.02 and the latest Spreadsheet_excel_writer package and Zend Optimizer. After some testing it appears that the loading of the formats is quite fast, but writing the main data columns takes about 0.06 secs per row. Since there are about 30 "main data" rows, that section alone takes 1.8 secs to write. All of the data is retrieved from the db before hand, and the section mainly consists of a few simple additions and approx 30 x 11 or so write calls. So in all it takes around 2 secs to build the data for one sheet. Now given that I the application requires as many as 50 or so to be dynamically created, the function becomes almost unusable. . .waaayyyy too slow. I took a look at the internals of the spreadsheet class and saw that everything is saved temporarily and written out at the end. I assume the data must be written in some sequential ordering. . . I disabled the tmp file in the _initialize() function to no avail. =( My question is. . .is there any particular way to improve the speed that is not listed in the api somewhere. Any recommendations on how to create a spreadsheet with a little more "zip"?? Thanks, dtan PS. The data can be written to a pdf file with FPDF in a fraction of the time. . .I just need to be able to edit the data properly