MATLAB: Read from Excel file as a plain table

excelfileMATLABspreadsheet

Hi everyone!
I have an excel file with the data like this:
The size (columns and rows quantity) is not defined and can be changed. Some data may be missing.
I want to get this table in Matlab as a simple table where every cell in the file is in a cell in the table. I do not need to use variable name read, to read in separate structures text and numerical data, or anything else. It will be more convenient to have only one variable as a table and then to get the required information and store it in a suitable variable format. For example, A4, A5, … convert to datetime, to merge B1 and B2 into one string, numeric values as a matrix.
However, readtable() function always tries to do something with head, and I didn't find a way to skip it. The way like 'ReadVariableNames',false only do not read head, but I want to see it in the variable.
Could you please tell me what to do to import data from an excel file without such smart reading?

Best Answer

[~,~,r]=xlsread('yourfile.xls');
will return a cell array r that is a duplicate of the spreadsheet content with no interpretation of what is what if that is what is wanted.
Or, as Walter points out, the modern replacement would be readcell
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