Running a macro outside of Excel

I want to automatically copy paste individual cells one at a time into
another program, as I cannot block paste columns from one program to the
other.

Is there any way I can configure a macro to operate outside Excel, copy a
cell, paste into a second program's spreadsheet and repeat this operation for
a column of figures?

Yes you can, although the language that you are using needs to be OLE enabled.

As an example here is a procedure that manipulates an Excel spreadsheet without the user even seeing Excel at all:

Form Create_Spreadsheet.
*
     Constants: c_start_row type XlRow value 7.
*
     Data: Excel      Type Ole2_Object,            " Application
           W_Book     Type Ole2_Object,            " Work book
           w_Sheet    Type Ole2_Object,            " Work Sheet
*
           w_ba_count type i,                      " Max # Business area
           w_row type xlRow,                       " Current ss row.
           w_start    type XlRangeAddress,         " Global format
           w_end      type XlRangeAddress,
           w_range    type XlRangeAddress,
           w_last     type i,
           w_last_col type XlColumn.
*
*    The number of business areas determines the number of cols in
*    the work sheet.
*
     Describe table t_tgsb lines w_ba_count.
*
     Create Object Excel 'EXCEL.APPLICATION'.
     Call Method Of Excel 'WORKBOOKS' = W_Book.
     Call Method of w_Book 'Add'.
     If sy-subrc = 0.
*
*       There may be more than one sheet here - get rid of any other
*       sheets
*
        Call Method of Excel 'Worksheets' = w_sheet Exporting #1 = 2.
        While sy-subrc = 0.
              Set Property Of Excel 'DisplayAlerts' = XlFalse.
              Call Method of w_Sheet 'Delete'.
              Set Property Of Excel 'DisplayAlerts' = XlTrue.
              Call Method of Excel 'Worksheets' = w_sheet
                   Exporting #1 = 2.
        EndWhile.
        Call Method Of Excel 'Sheets' = w_Sheet
             Exporting #1 = 'Sheet1'.
        Call Method Of W_sheet 'Activate'.
        Set Property of W_Sheet 'Name' = 'Draft Accounts'.
        Perform Set_Column_Widths    using w_sheet w_ba_count.
        Perform SpreadSheet_Headers  using w_sheet w_ba_count.
*
*       Do some global formatting
*
        Describe table t_spreadsheet lines w_row.
        Create_Address c_start_row 'B' w_start.
        Add 6 to w_row.                       " For additional totals
        Compute_Last_Column w_last w_last w_ba_count w_last_col.
        Create_Address w_row w_last_col w_end.
        Concatenate w_start w_end into w_range separated by ':'.
        Perform Set_Font using w_sheet w_range 'Arial' 7 'Bold'.

And so lower level code from one of the procedures:

Form Set_Single_Border Using pu_sheet     Type Ole2_Object
                             pu_range     Type XlRangeAddress
                             pu_LineStyle Type XlLineStyle
                             pu_Weight    Type XlLineWeight
                             pu_Colour    Type XlLineColour
                             pu_border    Type XlBorder.
*
     Data: Range   type Ole2_Object,
           Borders type Ole2_Object.
*
     Call Method of pu_Sheet 'Range' = Range Exporting #1 = pu_range.
     Call Method of Range 'Borders' = Borders
          Exporting #1 = pu_border.
     Set Property of Borders: 'Linestyle'  = pu_Linestyle,
                              'Weight'     = pu_Weight,
                              'ColorIndex' = pu_Colour.
*
     Free object Borders.
     Free object Range.
EndForm.

What language are you trying to do this in ? I can perhaps give you some pointers.

Regards

Rich