MATLAB: Xlsread not reading text only excel file

xlsread

I am trying to get xlsread to read a excel file that has mostly text. This is my excel file.
test.xlsx
Patrice Oneal 22-Jun-2012 Bill Burr 9-Dec-10
For some reason MATLAB turns the variable with the filename to []. I can't figure out why. I don't think that the code is reading the test.xlsx file.I would like for MATLAB to put the file into an array, however MATLAB just stores the variable that is supposed to contain the array with a "[]". I don't understand why? Can someone explain what I am doing wrong, and how to fix it?
Here is my code:
% Clear all variables screen clear all
% Clear screen clc
% Ask user if they have an excel file they would like to read from prompt = ('Do you have an excel file to add to list? y/n \n'); user_ans_file = input(prompt,'s');
        % If/else statement if the user says yes to having an Excel file
            if user_ans_file == 'y'
                % Ask user if the Excel file is in the write format

                    prompt = ('Is the excel file in the correct format [First Name|Last Name|dd-mmm-yyyy]? y/n \n');     
                    user_ans_format = input(prompt,'s');
                    % If/else statement if the user says yes to having an Excel file in the write format
                        if user_ans_format == 'y'
                            % Ask user if the Excel file is in the write format
                                prompt = ('what is the name of the file with the .xlsx extention?  \n');     
                                file_name = input(prompt,'s');
%                                 file_name = 'file_name'.xlsx;
                           % Read the Excel file that the user stated
                                num = xlsread(file_name);
                        end
            else
            end
–Ender–

Best Answer

You're only reading out the numbers, you want to read the file with:
 [numbers, TEXT, everything] = xlsread(file_name);
TEXT{2,1} is cell A2.
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