How can I determine if an XLS-file is open in Microsoft Excel, without using DDE commands, using MATLAB 7.7 (R2008b)?

I want to check whether an XLS-file is currently open in Microsoft Excel. In the past I used the command:

check_open  =  ddeinit('Excel',excelfile);

Now, DDEINIT has been deprecated. Is there any other workaround to resolve this issue?

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

To check if an XLS-file is open in Microsoft Excel, you may use any of the alternatives below:

1. Using  'ActiveX' commands:

try
    %Check if an Excel server is running
    ex = actxGetRunningServer('Excel.Application');
catch ME
    disp(ME.message)
end

if exist('ex','var')
    %Get the names of all open Excel files
    wbs = ex.Workbooks;

    %List the entire path of all excel workbooks that are currently open
    for i = 1:wbs.Count
        wbs.Item(i).FullName 
    end
end

The code above will list all the open .xlsx file.

2. Using 'FOPEN':

[fid msg] = fopen('path\to\excel\file\filename.xls','a');
if fid==-1
    disp('The file is already open.')
else
    fclose(fid);
    disp('If the file did not already exist, it has been created.')
end

In the above code, 'fid' is returned as '-1' if MATLAB was unable to open the file (since  file  is open in another application). Please note that an empty file will be created if it did not exist in the location specified to  FOPEN .