Excel Link    

Installing and Operating Excel Link
Follow these instructions to install Excel Link and then configure Excel.

System Requirements
Excel Link requires approximately 202 kilobytes of disk space. It requires Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98, or Microsoft Windows NT 4.0; Microsoft Excel 97; and MATLAB for Windows version 5.1 or later.

For best results with MATLAB figures and graphics, set the color palette of your display to a value greater than 256 colors. Click Start then Settings and Control Panel. Open Display, and on the Settings tab choose an appropriate entry from the Color Palette menu.

Installing Excel Link
Install Windows and Excel before you install MATLAB and Excel Link. To install Excel Link, follow the instructions in the MATLAB Installation Guide. Click in the box for Excel Link when you select MATLAB components to install.

Configuring Excel to Work with Excel Link
Once you have installed Excel Link, you are ready to configure Excel. You need do these steps only once.

  1. Start Microsoft Excel.
  2. Pull down the Tools menu, select Add-Ins and click Browse.
  3. Find and select the Excel Link add-in EXCLLINK.XLA under C:\MATLAB\EXLINK (or your path). Click OK.
  4. Back in the Add-Ins window, make sure there's a check in the box for Excel Link for use with MATLAB and click OK. The Excel Link add-in loads now and with each subsequent invocation of Excel.
  5. Watch for the MATLAB Command Window button to appear on the taskbar. Excel Link is now ready to use.

Starting Excel Link Automatically
When installed and configured according to the preceding instructions, Excel Link and MATLAB automatically start when you start Excel.

If you do not want Excel Link and MATLAB to start automatically when you start Excel, enter =MLAutoStart("no") in a worksheet cell. This function changes the initialization file so that Excel Link and MATLAB no longer start automatically when you start Excel. See MLAutoStart in the Reference chapter.

Starting Excel Link Manually
To start Excel Link and MATLAB manually from Excel, pull down the Tools menu and select Macro. In the Macro Name/Reference box enter matlabinit and click Run. Watch for the MATLAB Command Window button to appear on the taskbar. See matlabinit in the Reference chapter.

Stopping Excel Link
To stop both Excel Link and MATLAB, stop Excel as you normally would. Excel Link and MATLAB both stop when you stop Excel.You cannot connect a new Excel session to an existing MATLAB process unless you have started MATLAB with the /automation command line option.

To stop MATLAB and Excel Link and leave Excel running, enter =MLClose() in an Excel worksheet cell. You can restart Excel Link and MATLAB manually with MLOpen or matlabinit.

If you stop MATLAB directly in the MATLAB Command Window and leave Excel running, enter =MLClose() in an Excel worksheet cell. (MLClose tells Excel that MATLAB is no longer running.) You can restart Excel Link and MATLAB manually with MLOpen or matlabinit.


 Getting Started What the Functions Do