How to convert raw cell in [num,txt,raw] = xlsread to ordinary matrix if I have three string columns by using Matlab

I have Excel files containing string and numeric data such as...

ID_REF  Entrez Gene Gene Symbol SD_cancer 1 SD_cancer 2 SD_cancer 3 SD_cancer 4 SD_cancer 5
221438_s_at 56158   TEX12   2.946576    3.112977    2.968877    3.160022    2.998543
31826_at    23307   FKBP15  7.358873    7.415367    7.260536    7.281535    7.391214

The first three columns are strings and the rest of the columns are numeric. I used [num,txt,raw] = xlsread to read my Excel file. I want to convert raw cell to ordinary matrix to go further with my analysis. I tried to use cell2mat importdata textscan, but it does not work for me. Could you please help me to convert raw to matrix? I will be grateful to you.

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

No, it is not possible to create an ordinary matrix that contains both text and numeric values.