In answer to Alai, this is more of a microsoft problem, but we are stuck with making it work.
autofit doesn't work. - that is microsoft's problem. I keep trying anyway...
First I am wondering which version of the tagset you are using. Later versions of the tagset have greatly improved height calculations. I wouldn't be surprised if a newer version made
all of your problems go away.
Version 1.86 is available on the web at
http://support.sas.com/rnd/base/ods/odsmarkup/
The next thing is that you could use row_height_fudge, It's in points, and it is added to the height of each row after the calculations are done. You do not want autofit_height on, that will turn off any height specifications. Autofit_height would be great if Excel actually did what it should.
As it is, heights must be calculated and specified. The row_heights option can help also, but since you appear to want them all the same height, row_height_fudge may be what you need, although the heights will vary according to the font size and number of rows the text needs.