Writing MATLAB image to Excel file at a specific position

I have a function like [summary,image1,image2,image3] = funca(x,y). I wonder how I can write each image to a separate sheet in an Excel workbook at a specific position. Thanks for your comments!

Answer 1

[Noam Greenboim]

You can try to use this function I made:

XlsPutImage

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

MATLAB can't do this directly. You'd need to use ActiveX programming to call Excel API functions. Fortunately MATLAB can do that (make ActiveX calls). I don't recall doing that (stuffing images into Excel) so I don't have any demo code for you.

It's going to look somewhat similar to this:

% Open Excel file.
objExcel = actxserver('Excel.Application');
objExcel.Workbooks.Open(fullfile(excelFilePath, excelFileName)); % Full path is necessary!
oWB = objExcel.Workbooks.Add();
oSheet = oWB.ActiveSheet;
oSheet.Range("A1").Select;
oSheet.Pictures.Insert("<< full path to image file >>").Select();

But you can look up ActiveX in Answers or elsewhere. Here's one example:

http://www.mathworks.com/support/solutions/en/data/1-57DHEP/index.html

The Microsoft Excel methods you need are listed here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb242656%28office.12%29.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb259457%28v=office.12%29.aspx

This code may also be useful:

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/8405/Placing-images-in-Excel-using-automation

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/visualfoxprogeneral/thread/78f86ad4-2da7-410b-9290-b61cdd2d069c/

[H K.Berg]

Based on this explanation I've created a function named img2xlsx.m. You can add one and/or muliple images to a new or existing xlsx file. Also you can select and/or add a sheet and change image-dimenions. Check it out! http://nl.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/51191-img2xlsx

[Morteza]

I faced an error during compiling the above code: "Undefined function or variable 'Pictures'"

[Image Analyst]

Strange - that is the command that gets recorded if you record a macro. But I was also able to reproduce the error. Not sure why it errored out but I found an alternate way. I've tested this and it works:

% Get the name of the workbook you want to paste a picture into.
folder = pwd;
excelFileName = 'PicturePaste.xlsx';
fullFileName = fullfile(folder, excelFileName);
if ~exist(fullFileName, 'file')
  message = sprintf('Existing Excel workbook not found"\n%s', fullFileName);
  uiwait(errordlg(message));
  return;
end

% Open Excel as an ActiveX server.
objExcel = actxserver('Excel.Application');
objExcel.Visible = true;
% Open the workbook we want to paste the image onto.
ExcelWorkbook = objExcel.Workbooks.Open(fullFileName); % Full path is necessary!
% ExcelWorkbook = objExcel.Workbooks.Add();  % Add new, blank workbook.
oSheet = objExcel.ActiveSheet;
% oSheet.Range('A1').Select;

% Get the name of the image file.
imageFolder = fileparts(which('cameraman.tif')); % Determine where demo folder is (works with all versions).
imageFullFileName = fullfile(imageFolder, 'cameraman.tif')
% Get a handle to Shapes for Sheet 1
Shapes = oSheet.Shapes;
% Add image  by importing one from an image file on disk.
Shapes.AddPicture(imageFullFileName, 0, 1, 400, 18, 300, 235);
% Save the workbook.

% Tell it to not wait and pop up alerts like "This file exists.  Do you want to overwrite it."
objExcel.DisplayAlerts = false;
% Save this workbook we just created to disk.  Image will be saved with the workbook.
ExcelWorkbook.SaveAs(fullFileName);
% Close the workbook.  Excel will still be open though.
ExcelWorkbook.Close(false);
objExcel.Quit;  % Shut down Excel.