I'd to load a data set which is nominal (strings) but using function load creates only one column for all features. Also the dataset command results error "Duplicate variable names".
Excel actually does that quite well. Paste the data set in excel and on the Matlab command window make sure that you are in the same folder where the excel file is. You navigate (the window to your left) and double click the excel file. Matlab will initiate wizzard kind of, that will help you to load your string, matrix