| Products & Services | Solutions | Academia | Support | User Community | Company |
| Download Product Updates | | | Get Pricing | | | Trial Software |
| Documentation → MATLAB |
| Contents | Index |
| Learn more about MATLAB |
This table shows the file formats that you can import and export from the MATLAB application.
You can import any of these file formats using the Import Wizard or the importdata function, except the following:
netCDF
HDF5
Motion JPEG 2000
Platform-specific video
File Content | Extension | Description | Import Function | Export Function |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MATLAB formatted data | MAT | Saved MATLAB workspace | ||
Text | any | White-space delimited numbers | save -ascii | |
Delimited numbers | ||||
Comma delimited numbers | ||||
Any of the above text formats, or a mix of strings and numbers | ||||
Spreadsheet | XLS | Microsoft Excel worksheet | ||
XLSX | Formats supported with Excel 2007 for Windows installed | |||
| Extended Markup Language | XML | XML-formatted text | ||
| Data Acquisition Toolbox file | DAQ | Data Acquisition Toolbox | none | |
Scientific data | CDF | Common Data Format | ||
FITS | Flexible Image Transport System | none | ||
HDF | Hierarchical Data Format, version 4, or HDF-EOS v. 2 | |||
H5 | HDF or HDF-EOS, version 5 | |||
NC | Network Common Data Form (netCDF) | See netcdf | See netcdf | |
| Image | BMP | Windows Bitmap | ||
GIF | Graphics Interchange Format | |||
HDF | Hierarchical Data Format | |||
JPEG | Joint Photographic Experts Group | |||
PBM | Portable Bitmap | |||
PCX | Paintbrush | |||
PGM | Portable Graymap | |||
PNG | Portable Network Graphics | |||
PNM | Portable Any Map | |||
PPM | Portable Pixmap | |||
RAS | Sun Raster | |||
TIFF | Tagged Image File Format | |||
XWD | X Window Dump | |||
CUR | Windows Cursor resources | none | ||
FITS FTS | Flexible Image Transport System | |||
ICO | Windows Icon resources | |||
JP2 | JPEG 2000 | |||
Audio file | AU | NeXT/Sun sound | ||
WAV | Microsoft WAVE sound | |||
Video (Windows, Macintosh, and Linux) | AVI | Audio Video Interleave | ||
MJ2 | Motion JPEG 2000 | none | ||
| Video (Windows) | MPG | Motion Picture Experts Group, phases 1 and 2 | mmreader | none |
ASF | Windows Media® | |||
any | Formats supported by Microsoft DirectShow® | |||
| Video (Mac®) | MPG | MPEG-1 and MPEG-4 | mmreader | none |
any | Formats supported by QuickTime®, including .mov, .3gp, .3g2, and .dv | |||
| Video (Linux) | any | Formats supported by your installed GStreamer plug-ins, including .ogg | mmreader | none |
uiimport, clipboard, fscanf, fread, fprintf, fwrite, imformats, hdf, hdf5
![]() | filebrowser | filemarker | ![]() |

Includes the most popular MATLAB recorded presentations with Q&A sessions led by MATLAB experts.
| © 1984-2009- The MathWorks, Inc. - Site Help - Patents - Trademarks - Privacy Policy - Preventing Piracy - RSS |