Read excel file where format and extension do not match into Matlab

Hi, I have excel files that appear as .xls in Windows but upon opening in Excel, the program opens a pop-up saying:

"The file format and extension of 'FILE' don't match. The file could be corrupted or unsafe. Unless you trust its source, dont open it. Do you want to open it anyway?".

I click 'yes' and then a banner appears at the top saying:

"Possible data loss: Some features might be lost if you save this workbook in the text (.txt) format. To preserve these features, save it in an Excel file format",

giving me the options to not show again or save as a different file type.

I have tried all the file-opening commands I am familiar with such as importdata, readcell, readmatrix, textscan, etc.

Error using readcell (line 152)
Unable to find or open '**EXAMPLEPATH**\**EXAMPLENAME**.xls'. Check the path and filename or file permissions.

Error using readcell (line 152)
Unable to open file '**EXAMPLEPATH**\**EXAMPLENAME**.xls' as a workbook. Check that the file exists, read access is available, and the
file is a valid spreadsheet file.

Error using xlsread (line 257)
File '**EXAMPLEPATH**\**EXAMPLENAME**.xls' not in Microsoft Excel Format.

Error using importdata (line 139)
Unable to open file.

Error using readtable (line 498)
Unable to open file '**EXAMPLEPATH**\**EXAMPLENAME**.xls' as a workbook. Check that the file exists, read access is
available, and the file is a valid spreadsheet file.

How can I import this file into Matlab?

EDIT: Removed filepaths/filenames

[Maximilian Rowe]

Hi Chris and Benjamin, please find an example file attached.

Max

[Stephen23]

"Hi, I have excel files ..."

No, you don't. You actually have some neatly formatted text files which look like this:

This file has absolutely nothing to do with Excel, apart from the misleading file extension. If you want to import text file data then clearly you will need to use text-file importing routines. Because the data are stored in blocks you will need to take that into account when importing:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/import_export/reading-arbitrary-format-text-files-with-textscan.html

Tip: a file extension is just some characters at the end of the filename, it does not actually determine the file type.

[Stephen23]

" Do you have any recommendations on how to import this into MATLAB?"

The obvious step would be to rename the file using a more accurate file extension. Try that.

All of the READTABLE, READMATRIX etc. family of functions have an option that lets you specify the filetype (overwriding the automatic detection based on the file extension), the option is called "FileType". You could try using that:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/readtable.html#namevaluepairs

But because of the repeating blocks of data, most likely you will have more luck with TEXTSCAN (which requires opening and closing the text file using FOPEN and FCLOSE), as the link I gave you earlier shows:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/import_export/reading-arbitrary-format-text-files-with-textscan.html

Note that you can easily call TEXTSCAN in a while loop together with FGETL, FSCANF, etc., checking for the end using FEOF:

fid = fopen(..);
while ~feof(fid)
... TEXTSCAN etc
end
fclose(fid);

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

It's a text file. Just rename it.

fileName = 'MA203901 ASP1 MR sta1-Idark.xls';
fileName2 = strrep(fileName, '.xls', '.txt');
copyfile(fileName, fileName2);
data = importdata(fileName2)

[Maximilian Rowe]

Thank you, that worked. I tried that before in Windows File explorer and it did not work....