Emacs Org-Mode tables are very powerful. The formula editor can execute elisp commands which makes for a really powerful spreadsheet editor (especially when combined with org-sbe). One big limitation I've faced is multi-line content.

To solve this I've created a simple function to wrap around results of some elisp block to always return the most useful data.

(org-table-create-and-insert-reference "hello") -> "hello"

(org-table-create-and-insert-reference "") -> "nil"

(org-table-create-and-insert-reference nil) -> "nil"

(org-table-create-and-insert-reference "hello\nworld") -> [[table-results-nnnnn]] + an inserted named block at the bottom of the buffer

(defun org-table-create-and-insert-reference (results)
  (let* ((return "")
	 (temp-name (make-temp-name "table-result-"))
	 (block-template "\n\n#+name: %s\n#+begin_quote\n%s\n#+end_quote")
	 )
    (cond ((or (string= results "") (not results))
	   (setq return "nil"))

	  ((= 1 (length (string-lines results)))
	   (setq return results))

	  (t
	   (progn
	     (save-excursion
	       (goto-char (point-max))
	       (insert (format block-template temp-name results))
	       )
	     (setq return (format "[[%s]]" temp-name))))
	  )
    return)
  )