Assigning two seperate EXCEL columns to two arrays in one go

I have a very large Excel file (848,000 lines), and I want to read 2 seperate columns and assign to two different arrays. I am able to assign the first column A to an array "text1".

ct1=sprintf('A%d:A%d',idx1+1,idx1+count)
[ndata, text1]=xlsread(file,ct1);

Because it takes about 3 minutes to do this, I dont want to sequentially do the same to read Column J of the same spreadsheet and assign to text2. Is it possible to read two discrete columns and assign to two separate arrays in one go? Thanks

[Guillaume]

Is the file an excel file as stated above, or a text file as stated in your comment to Philip answer?

Answer 1

[Philip Caplan]

It is only possible to import a rectangular range when using either "xlsread", "csvread" or "readtable", therefore, your columns will need to be side-by-side in order to import them into MATLAB with one call to the aforementioned functions. For example:

>> [ndata,text1] = xlsread(file,'B3:D7');

will read your file from rows 3-7 and columns B to D. You can then extract the data from the returned array but the key is that the columns you want to read need to be adjacent.

[Jason]

Thanks for clarifying. My file is although saved as a CSV is actually tab delimited. Are there any alternative ways to achieve what I want not using xlsread? Jason

[Philip Caplan]

In that case I would suggest using "textscan" and following the example at:

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/91340-read-in-only-certain-columns-of-big-text-file