Reading large excel file using "read" command takes ~5 minutes, is this expected performance?

I am reading a simulation/test output data in a .xlsx file into a matlab table through a datastore variable. The test data contains 450+ variables, each with 20000+ samples (i.e.) 450+ columns and 20000+ rows but all are numbers. I created a datastore on the excel file, modified the selected variables and variable type properties and used read command to read the file into a matlab table, it took about ~5 minutes. When I tried readtable command on the excel file directly, it took about the same time as well. However when I tried reading the file interactively using matlab export dialog, it took less than 30 seconds, so I am wondering if there's any way to achieve the same level of efficiency programmatically?

Answer 1

[J. Alex Lee]

Try manually creating the import options with spreadsheetimportoptions().

[Ajay Kumar]

Thanks. I will read up on this function and try it out. The format of the test output sheet will not change that often, but If it does, then I will have to update this object that I am gonna create?

[J. Alex Lee]

Yes, the idea is to fully specify the import parameters so that they don't have to be auto-detected.