Reading microsoft excel spreadsheets not within the 'Current Folder' directory in Matlab working environment?

I am familiar with the xlsread functions, however I understand the file must be within the current path/folder that matlab is working in. Is it possible to load spreadsheet data from a random location on the drive using the load command? I have come accross the uigetfile function which is useful since I have just started working with GUIs (GUIDE etc):

 [filename1, pathname1, FilterIndex] = uigetfile;

When I load the data would it matter to us the path or filename?

Thanks for any advice, Al

Answer 1

[Srinivas]

you can give your full path in xlsread some thing like this

data = xlsread('C:\Users\username\myfile.xlsx')

[Jordan Andersen]

Be sure there are no spaces in your file path as MATLAB recognises the space character as a break in a command. It's a good habit to always use an underscore instead of a space when naming data files from the start.

e.g. data = xlsread('C:\Users\username\my_file.xlsx') instead of ('C:\...\my file.xlsx')

[Walter Roberson]

Spaces within quoted strings do not terminate commands (except indirectly; you have to be careful if you use dos() or system() or unix() )

Historically, though, some Simulink related toolboxes had problems with directories that had spaces or special characters in the name.