Why do I receive an 'Unrecognized String Header' error when using the XLSREAD function in MATLAB 6.5 (R13)?

I am trying to import the data in my excel file, into the MATLAB workspace using the following command:

[nu na] = xlsread('badfile.xls');

However, I receive an error regarding an 'Unrecognized String Header' error:

 XLS File contains unrecognized string header - skipping remaining text - (872:0x63 65528).

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

This is bug in MATLAB 6.5 (R13) when importing data from certain Microsoft Excel files. This issue has been resolved in MATLAB 7.0 (R14) and later releases of MATLAB.

For previous releases of MATLAB or when using XLSREAD in 'basic' mode (on UNIX and MAC systems), there are no workarounds.