how to stop xlsread from trimming empty cells?

hello, I am working with xlsread to process some excel data. I need the matrix created by xlsread to NOT trim empty cells.

I have tried:

[~, ~, distress_data] = xlsread(observed_distress,'','E12:N1000')% keeps all data in type 'cell'

distress_data = cell2mat(distress_data);% results in error 'All contents of the input cell array must  be of the same data type'

This error is produced even when all the empty cells are replaced with zeros.

Any help would be great!

Thanks,

[Shoaibur Rahman]

Make sure that all elements in distress_data are in cell type after replacing the empty cells.