I have pretty well mastered the ability to export data to Excel, but now I am looking to use the template feature available with the AppendFile command. I have created a file named template.xls and in cell A1, put in &[colHeadSoldTo]. However, when I attempt to open the output file, I get an error saying the file type is not recognized, and when I force the file to open, cell A1 is filled with gibberish characters. However, if set up a template in .txt format, it works fine. Do Excel templates not work?

".xls" is a binary format that does not work as a template. Suggestion: Use CSV format instead, this can be opened with Excel as well. 

If formatting is a must, I suggest you generate the CSV file and then use Excel macros to import the CSV file automatically into the spreadsheet.