How do I use readcell and keep leading spaces within cells

I have an Excel spreadsheet I need to import using readcell, and some of the cells within the spreadsheet have leading spaces before the text (as a sort of indent to differentiate them when reading).

Currently my code is just a basic readcell command:

raw = readcell([xls_path, '/', xls_filename],'Sheet', sheet_name);

where xls_path, xls_filename, and sheet_name are user inputs from earlier in the program. When Matlab imports the data, all of the spaces at the beginning of the cells are removed.

How can I import the data in the Excel file and preserve the leading spaces in the cells?

Answer 1

[Star Strider]

There may be other ways of doing this (and I am not certain that it will work with your Excel fiile), however if you define whitespace as a delimiter, in detectImportOptions, the LeadingDelimitersRule name-value pair could work. In the setvaropts documentation, WhiteSpaceRule could also work.