You cannot read a fixed width file with a numeric specifier, e.g. %5d, because it will end reading the first -3 as -3111 which has 5 "positions" as indicated by %5d.
You can read in fixed columns as %5c, an example:
str = ' -311116112111133511355115981162411702118431193912121121641219512406';
out = textscan(str,repmat('%5c',1,14),'Whitespace','');
I suggest to do:
fid = fopen('test.txt','r');
if strfind(fgetl(fid),'NODES')
% Read in as char X by 70
tmp = textscan(fid,'%70c','Whitespace','');
sz = size(tmp{1});
% Fundamental reshape and add a white space
st = char(' ', reshape(tmp{1}.',5,14*sz(1)));
out = textscan(st,'%5f','CollectOutput',1);
out = reshape(out{1},14,sz(1)).';
else
error('no NODES found !');
end
EDIT
% Read in as cellstring to identify the headlines
fid = fopen('test.txt','r');
tmp = textscan(fid,'%s','Delimiter','','Whitespace','');
fclose(fid);
% Find start of NODES and ELEMT
sten = find(strcmpi('nodes',tmp{1}) | ...
strcmpi('elemt',tmp{1}));
% Extract nodes
nodes = char(tmp{1}(sten(1)+1:sten(2)-1));
if ~isempty(nodes)
sz = size(nodes);
% Reshape and add a white space
nodes = char(' ', reshape(nodes.',5,14*sz(1)));
nodes = textscan(nodes,'%5f','CollectOutput',1);
nodes = reshape(nodes{1},14,sz(1)).';
end
% Extract nodes
elemt = char(tmp{1}(sten(2)+1:end-1));
if ~isempty(elemt)
sz = size(elemt);
% Reshape and add a white space
elemt = char(' ', reshape(elemt.',5,14*sz(1)));
elemt = textscan(elemt,'%5f','CollectOutput',1);
elemt = reshape(elemt{1},14,sz(1)).';
end
EDIT 2
fmt = repmat('%5f',1,14);
opt = {'EmptyValue',0,'CollectOutput',1};
% Extract nodes
nodes = tmp{1}(sten(1)+1:sten(2)-1);
if ~isempty(nodes)
nodes = cellfun(@(x) textscan(char(' ',reshape(x.',5,[])), fmt, opt{:}), nodes);
nodes = cat(1,nodes{:});
end
% Extract elemt
elemt = tmp{1}(sten(2)+1:end-1);
if ~isempty(elemt)
elemt = cellfun(@(x) textscan(char(' ',reshape(x.',5,[])), fmt, opt{:}), elemt);
elemt = cat(1,elemt{:});
end
