Matlab and excel issues, active x server crash

I am trying to write a program that will read blocks of data from an excel file, and then write them to another excel file. For some reason I cannot get xlswrite command to do what I am trying to do because of error issues. I decided to try to run an active x server and see if this could fix my problem. I am not very familiar with active x but i have been doing alot of research and I dont know what my issue is. For some reason when i try to run the code:

Excel = actxcontrol ('Excel. Application');

i get the error:

Control creation failed. Invalid ProgID 'Excel.Application'

I am running on matlab2008b and excel 2003

Answer 1

[Mark Whirdy]

PLEASE PRESS [ACCEPT] IF THIS SOLVES YOUR ISSUE, THANKS

....

1) ACTXSERVER

For programmatic manipulation of an excel instance, the launch command is

Excel = actxserver('Excel.Application');

2) ACTXCONTROL

actxcontrol.m is for inserting a activex spreadsheet interface into a figure as per the below snippet. To see which version of the activex spreadsheet you have on your machine type "actxcontrollist" and scan downuntil you see a mention of a spreadsheet

f = figure;
actxcontrol('OWC11.Spreadsheet.11',[20,20,510,380],f);

---------------------------------------------

You are mixing the two up by typing

Excel = actxcontrol ('Excel. Application');

[Mark Whirdy]

search for tag: "actxserver" in Matlab Answers for example script on how to use.

e.g. http://www.mathworks.co.uk/matlabcentral/answers/42710-problem-with-xlsread-bizarre-results

[Tyler]

i understand that

Excel = actxserver('Excel.Application');

is the launch command which is my problem, that is the line of code that errors out. I dont understand what causes this to crash. From what i can tell any other example code uses that line to start.

[Mark Whirdy]

Hi Tyler, but above you wrote that "Excel = actxcontrol ('Excel. Application');" causes the error.

Note that I have written "actxserver" but you have above written "actxcontrol" - they are not the same thing. The error you are receiving is due to erroneous calling of actxCONTROL.

Above I was trying to explain the difference between the two.