MATLAB: How to set the letters in an Excel sheet cell to ‘BOLD’ through ACTXSERVER using MATLAB 7.8 (R2009a)

MATLAB

I wish to make the word "align" bold in an Excel worksheet cell.

Best Answer

The ability to connect to applications that allow standard COM/ActiveX invocation via the MATLAB COM Client interface is supported in MATLAB 7.8 (R2009a).

However, since each application can have a different set of API methods, we usually are not able provide extended technical support for usage and syntax of each application's specific API.

In this specific case, Excel is the application invoked as a COM server via the COM Client interface from MATLAB. To make the lettes of a cell 'BOLD', one can use the following MATLAB code snippet:

h = actxserver('Excel.Application')
h.visible = true
h.Workbooks.Add
sheet = h.ActiveWorkbook.Sheets.Item(1);
sheet.Activate
cells = h.ActiveSheet.Range('C1')
set(cells.Font, 'Bold', true)

Letters typed in cell 'C1' will appear bold now.

Related Solutions

MATLAB: How to use activex to copy an Excel spreadsheet within the same workbook

The underlying API behind "actxserver" is Microsoft's COM interface. MATLAB simply leverages the COM interface to make calls using Microsoft's APIs. For questions on using the COM interface and syntax please consult Microsoft Documentation and Microsoft Technical Support if necessary.

For copying sheets, please refer to the following documentation page.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/vba/api/excel.worksheet.copy

Using this, you can use the Example script attached. The crux of the example is at:

a = e.ActiveSheet;
invoke(a,'Copy',[], a)
e.ActiveSheet.Name = "gsData_01";

The first step is to get the active sheet, which in this case is the sheet to be copied.

Next we use the "invoke" function to call the sheet copy method documented in the link above. We are using the optional argument "After" (as noted in the documentation) with the active sheet again in order to place the new sheet after the copied sheet.

Finally, the newly copied sheet is set as the active sheet and thus we can rename it by renaming the ActiveSheet.

Alternatively, you could manually copy a sheet using by first reading the original sheet into MATLAB and then writing it back to Excel as a new sheet. This is discussed in more detail at:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/407071-how-to-copy-excel-sheet-from-book-to-book

MATLAB: Does MATLAB round-off the data when obtaining data from Excel using DDE protocols

The round-off behavior is a limitation of MATLAB when interfacing with Excel using the DDE protocol.

NOTE: As of MATLAB 5.3.1 (Release 11.1) DDE has been stabilized. That is, we are no longer developing this feature. If you want to access other Windows applications, use ActiveX.

Documentation on ActiveX can be found in our documentation at:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/matlab_external/creating-com-objects.html#f106314

A simple example is provided below on how to use ActiveX to obtain data from the first cell of the first sheet in an Excel Workbook. Note the use of the FORMAT LONG, so that the data will not be truncated.

%Open An Excel Server
excel=actxserver('Excel.Application');
get(excel)
%Open an Already Existing WorkBook
workbooks=excel.workbooks
h=invoke(workbooks,'open','H:\Documents\Attach\Cases\work\example.xls')     %Direct to location of *.xls
%Make First sheet Active
sheets=excel.ActiveWorkBook.Sheets;
sheet1=get(sheets,'Item',1);
invoke(sheet1,'Activate');
%Get Handle to an Active Sheet
activesheet=excel.Activesheet;
%Get A value from a certain cell
range=get(activesheet,'range','a1')
format long     %Set MATLAB format so that it does not truncate value
value=range.value

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MATLAB: How to use activex to copy an Excel spreadsheet within the same workbook

MATLAB: Does MATLAB round-off the data when obtaining data from Excel using DDE protocols

Related Question