xlswrite an empty string

I have a list of words in an excel file. I want to delete on item from the list and then move up the words below so there are no blanks, empty cells. I read the file with xlsread. Then I get the shorten list. Finally, I write that array into the same file. The problem is the last item of the original array is still there. For example if the list of words is 'word1 word2 word3' and I delete 'word2' producing 'word1 word3' When I wire this the file contains 'word1 word3 word3' I do not want the second 'word3' there. I've tried putting '' in the last row but that appears as NaN in the excel file.

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

it's not clear

Answer 1

[Oleg Komarov]

You can control the excel file directly without importing it through ActiveX:

% Open the excel file (it remains invisible however)

excel    = actxserver ('Excel.Application');
% excel.Visible = 1;
workbook = excel.Workbooks.Open('C:\Users\ok1011\Desktop\test.xlsx');

% Activate the sheet you need (optional if the sheet is the first)

workbook.Worksheets.Item(1).Activate;

% Delete A2, shifts upwards

workbook.ActiveSheet.Range('A2').Delete

% Now save/close/quit/delete

% excel.Visible = 0;
workbook.Save;
excel.Workbook.Close;
invoke(excel, 'Quit');
delete(excel)

[Jim]

Oleg,

Thanks - it works fine. now, The word I want to delete will change. The cell containing the word to be deleted will always be in column A but the row will change. How do I write the code to have the row be the number in 'worddelete(1,1)'

Thanks, Jim

[Oleg Komarov]

workbook.ActiveSheet.Range(sprintf('A%d',wordelete(1,1))).Delete

[Jim]

thanks again