Is it possible to embed a single page excel spreadsheet into a drawing so that it can be edited directly from teh drawing?  Like if you copy and paste a dwg into a word document....you can doubleclick the dwg from the word doc and edit....

Yes.  It's called Data Linking (DATALINK).  But it did not become an AutoCAD function until version 2008.  If you're still using AutoCAD 2004 you're out of luck I'm afraid.Dave.

Take a look at AutoTable.http://www.cadig.com/products/