How do I force the dataimport function to always work in basic mode?

I'm importing an xls file via importdata on my local machine which has Microsoft Excel installed. The returned structure has Excel dates under text.

It looks something like this:

returnedData.data.wksht = [nxm];
returnedData.text.wksht = {cell of date strings};

I'm deploying this script to a machine that does not have MS Excel installed. The importdata function interprets the dates in the file as numbers and therefore places them under data in the returned structure.

This scenario looks something like this:

returnedData.data.wksht = [nx(m+1)];
returnedData.text.wksht = empty;

The subsequent code breaks since the data is moved around. Is there a way to control this? Is there a way to force dataimport to operate in Basic mode on my local machine? I can't find any options to do this.

Thanks!

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

You can call xlsread() directly with the 'basic' flag.