actxserver excel application

Can anyone give me a simple explanation of how to use actxserver to import data from matlab. I have a working code by using loops and xlsread but the running time is way too long. All I understand about actxserver is that it will save time as it doesn't open and close excel every time it goes through the loop.

I've got this far:

hExcel = actxserver('Excel.Application');
hExcel.visible = 1; % If you want Excel visible.
hExcel.DisplayAlerts = false; % Avoid excel warning popups

Which basically just opens excel. I now need to get some data...

Answer 1

[Jan]

See http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/newsreader/view_thread/293325

A search in the forum is helpful also: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/?term=xlsread+activex

[Richard]

from one of the topics on the forum I cam across

http://www.orient-lodge.com/node/3430

Where in this link it shows how to use ActiveX. I have 2 questions which don't seem to be covered:

1) in the command

sheet1=excel.Worksheets.get(‘Item’, ‘Sheet1’);

is it possible to obtain everything from 'Sheet1' without having to specify the range with:

range1=get(sheet1,’Range’, ‘A1’);

a1=range1.Value;

instead can you do something like

a1=sheet1.Value;

Because your not going to know the range without looking at each .xls file first, where if you have 100 .xls files it would take some time.

2) if I have several .xls files in different directories is it a simple case of making a loop and having the path name of each file and then placing it in the line below?

file = excel.Workbooks.Open(xlsfile);

[Richard]

ok I've covered this much so far:

excel = actxserver('Excel.Application');
excel.Visible=1
file = excel.Workbooks.Open(Filename');
sheet1=excel.Worksheets.get('Item', 'data');
rowEnd = sheet1.Range('A1').End('xlDown').Row
colEnd = sheet1.Range('A1').End('xlToRight').Column

So now I have the number of rows and the number of columns for the spreadsheet. I just need to know how to define the range of values from these numbers instead of using cell name i.e. 'A1'.

Any advice?

[Fangjun Jiang]

Yes, to loop through different files, it's better to provide the full path of the files.

To read all the data in the sheet without specifying the range, use

MyRange=Sheet.UsedRange;

MyData=MyRange.Value;

[Richard]

great.