reading text and number from excel

Hello

I have this big excel file incuding text and numbers. when I use t= xlsread('table.xlsx'); it removes the columns with string automatically. when I use t = readtable('table.xlsx'); I am able to see the whole table. however, I fail to do my main job which is plotting different columns versus others . what command should i use to be able read from a table including text and number and be able to do all regular matrix function? Thanks !

t = readtable('table.xlsx')
a=t(:,4)
b=t(:,6) 
plot (a,b, '.')
lsline

[per isakson]

See

[num,txt,raw] = xlsread(___)

in the documentation and try

a=t{:,4}
b=t{:,6}

[farfar]

it worked . thank you !