I'm trying to add some simple excel automation to my C app. I found
some C++ code that I was able to modify to do what I want, but that code
won't link to my C app, and I can't convert the app to C++ just for this.

I found an article with a tiny 'OLE Automation from a C App' code sample
that works in my app at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/181473
but that sample simply starts Excel and sets 'visible'. I need to do a
little (not much) more, passing in file paths and macro names, etc.

Using the C sample as a template, I'm trying to convert the C++ sample
to C. The C sample has code to pass an integer parameter, but I need to
be able to pass in file paths as strings. The C++ sample does this by
converting them to BSTR's (VB string? OLE string?) and passing them as
VT_BSTR. Will Excel accept string parameters as VT_LPSTR, or do I have
to pass them as BSTR's. If so, can anybody provide a code snippet to
create a BSTR from a normal C string?

Thanks,
Rob