xlswrite from cell and strcat error 0x800A03EC

GreetingsI have a variable

A={'H$1';'H$2';'H$3'} %a 4x1 cell

% I need to generate an xlsx file with

=(YesH$1No) in cell A1

=(YesH$2No) in cell A2

=(YesH$2No) in cell A3

% I can xlswrite AA elements to excel wo problem

for ii=1:3
AA(1,ii)=A(ii)
BB{1,ii}=strcat('=(Yes',AA{ii},'No)')
end

xlswrite('fileA.xls', AA)
xlswrite('fileB.xls', BB)

% for BB because of the equal and parenthesis it outputs an error

Error using xlswrite (line 219)
Error: Object returned error code: 0x800A03EC

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

Try

writetable(cell2table(BB),'fileB.xls', 'WriteVariableNames', false)

Note that this would be for the case where you want the cells to contain those literal strings, not for the case where you are trying to write macros at those locations. For that task of writing macros, what I find is https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48190180/can-matlab-write-a-macro-in-an-excel-file-via-activex

[Dave]

thanks, but if I run that it outputs

Error using writetable (line 106)
Error writing table variable 'BB3' to 'fileB.xls':

Error: Object returned error code: 0x800A03EC

[Dave]

In my code above, if I remove the equal sign in the strcat it writes ok.

'(Yes' works

'=(Yes' gives error

[Walter Roberson]

Hack workaround: disable / uninstall Excel for the moment. That would cause writetable() to use internal routines to do the writing instead of talking to Excel.

Or, Hack Workaround: edit writeXLSFile.m and change

 book = createWorkbook(filename, ext, true);

to

book = createWorkbook(filename, ext, false);