How to read both data and head lines in a file ?

I would like to read a data file composed of 16 headlines and a matrix. I cannot read the matrix using dmlread because, wrong values are marked by an X and matlab returns a error message, so I converted the data file in excel and read it using xlsread. I need to extract some information from the head lines and I can read them using textscan, but only in the original text file and not in the excel file.

How can I read both matrix and head lines using the same file (excel of text), without having to work on the file before ? (I have hundreds of those files, I cannot work on each separately)

Sorry for english mistakes