Table data direct to Excel, not via file

I would like to put a context menu on a UI Table to Open the data/send direct to Excel. I can do this via a temporary file, but would like to know if it is possible to send the data direct to remove the need to save/open the data via a file?

My current code (which works) is:

data = [{'Cat', 1, 2, 3};{'Dog', 4, 5, 6};{'Chicken', 7, 8, 9}]
T = cell2table(data)
writetable(T,'temp.csv')
winopen('temp.csv')

What I was looking for was something of the form:

data = [{'Cat', 1, 2, 3};{'Dog', 4, 5, 6};{'Chicken', 7, 8, 9}]
system('Excel',data)

Aside from the fact this does not work, system commands appear to leave an open command window when complete. I was able to get just the system(Excel) part to work, but had to look up the full path of the Excel executable (surprised it was not in the system path def). This left the command window open, and does not solve the original problem of calling with with data.

Final Q: What is the right form for just launching the app (Excel, Word, etc) without data? Is there a better way than the system() command?

Answer 1

[Ameer Hamza]

Why not directly

writetable(T,'temp.xlsx')

instead of exporting it to a csv.

[Marc Elpel]

I could do that as well, but the intent is not to go to file, but to get the data into Excel so the user can work with it within the Excel environment.

[Ameer Hamza]

I don't have a window platform, but does the function winopen() not work on MS Excel?

[Marc Elpel]

Winopen() does nto work opening Excel (might be because it is not in the system path).

Regardless, that would not solve the issue unless I could do winopen('Excel' [data]), which does not appear to be valid syntax.