xlwrite: Generate XLS(X) files without Excel on Mac/Linux/Win

Generates ‘.xls’ & '.xlsx' files on Mac/Linux/Win without Excel, using same syntax as xlswrite.

xlwrite allows to generate '.xls' & '.xlsx' files easily without having Excel installed or using COM-objects. It generates Excel files by using the Apache POI java library. This way Excel files can be generated on any platform supporting Java, including Linux & mac.

xlwrite uses the same syntax as xlswrite, making it easy to integrate in current applications.

xlwrite supports following datatypes:
- string
- numerical
- logical/boolean
The type of data is kept in Excel: for example boolean data in matlab will be saved as boolean in Excel.

xlwrite also supports a combination of above datatypes in a cell array like for example:
xlsData = {1 true 'text' false; 10 -12.5 6 false};

To generate the Excel file without too much overhead, xlwrite interacts directly with the Apache POI library.

The original idea of this script is based on the xlwrite function written by Marin Deresco, however due to some limitations we had to write an improved version.

Although created under Matlab 2012a, xlwrite should also work for earlier versions of Matlab.

UPDATE: if you find any bugs, please contact me directly.