Using Matlab to create Excel charts with X and Y values ​​from a range

As I said in the comments, the best documented method for this would be to use VBA. As it happens, the VBA documentation can actually be used to take most of the guesswork out of interacting with a COM object directly from Matlab, since the syntax is similar.

Here are some updated Matlab codes that achieve your three points. I've included links to MSDN documentation where appropriate:

% Start Excel and open workbook
Excel = actxserver('Excel.Application');  
WB = Excel.Workbooks.Open('C:\...\test.xlsx');
% Show the workbook
Excel.visible = 1;
% Add chart
Chart = invoke(WB.Charts,'Add');
% Get Sheet object
SheetObj = Excel.Worksheets.get('Item', 'Sheet1');
% Name chart sheet
Chart.Name = 'TestChart';

% Set source data range of chart
% X and Y data can also be set to Matlab arrays, by Srs.Values and Srs.XValues, ensuring equal length
  % Y data
Srs = Chart.SeriesCollection.Add(SheetObj.Range('B2:B16'));
  % X data, could be a Matlab array of correct length
Srs.XValues = SheetObj.Range('A2:A16');
  % Series name
Srs.Name = 'Test Series';

% For chart types,  see https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff837417.aspx
Chart.ChartType = 'xlXYScatterSmooth'; 
% Set chart title,  see https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff196832.aspx
Chart.HasTitle = true;
Chart.ChartTitle.Text = 'Test Title';
% Set chart legend, see https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff821884.aspx
Chart.HasLegend = true;

      

        
        
        
      

    

Your error:

You ran into an error because you tried to access the Range

application object Excel

. It doesn't exist! All objects Range

belong to the object Sheet

which I get first in the above code.

Creation of many episodes:

You say you have many columns of data, here is a way to include them through a loop. It also finds the last used row in each column.

% ... CREATE WORKBOOK / CHART AS BEFORE ...
%
Chart.Name = 'TestChart';

% Set source data range of chart, do X and Y data for each series    
columns = 2:4;
colnames = {'xdata', 'my series 1', 'my series 2', 'my series 3'};
for col = columns
      % Get Excel column *letter* from column *number*
    colchar = strrep([char(96+floor((col-1)/26)) char(97+rem(col-1,26))],char(96),'');
      % Last row of data, see https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff839539.aspx
      % Data must be contiguous (no gaps / blank cells)
    lastrow = num2str(SheetObj.Range([colchar, '2']).End('xlDown').Row);
      % Y data, creating range strings by concatenation of column character and row number
    Srs = Chart.SeriesCollection.Add(SheetObj.Range([colchar, '2:', colchar, lastrow]));
      % X data, same approach is used for last row, but only column = 1 = "A" 
    Srs.XValues = SheetObj.Range(['A2:A', lastrow]);
     % Set column name, to use the first row do
     % Srs.Name = SheetObj.Range([colchar, '1']);
    Srs.Name = colnames{col};
end

Chart.ChartType = 'xlXYScatterSmooth'; 
%
% ... TITLE / LEGEND AS BEFORE ...

      

        
        
        
      

    

Output chart sheet and input "Sheet1":

Edit:

In the example above, I iterate over the column numbers to populate the y data. If you know the letter of the column, you can simply iterate over colchar

instead of creating it.

% There are shortcuts to creating a cell array of consecutive letters, 
% Like columnletters = cellstr(('H':'J')');
for colchar = {'H', 'I', 'J'};
    % ... same as the above for loop, but don't need to get colchar from col
    lastrow = num2str(SheetObj.Range([colchar, '2']).End('xlDown').Row);
    Srs = Chart.SeriesCollection.Add(SheetObj.Range([colchar, '2:', colchar, lastrow]));
    Srs.XValues = SheetObj.Range(['A2:A', lastrow]);
    Srs.Name = SheetObj.Range([colchar, '1']);

end