How to copy Excel numbers at the R prompt

Dear all,
I was wonderin how to copy data from an Excel sheet
to the R prompt.

For a single culumn it works
to select the data in Excel,
copy to the clipboard with ctrl-c
and to use in R:
-------
x<-scan()
[paste data with ctrl-v (paste)]
[ctrl-z, to end input]
-------

But with multiple columns Excels tabs
are "eaten" by the R-promt, and
the numbers concatenated without separator.

Is there a handy method for this?

Thanks,
Gerrit.