[R] Reading Parts of Excel Files (within a sheet)

[Peter Lomas]

Dear R Users,

I have to read data from many excel spreadsheets, all which have some
frustrating formatting (lots of titles, headers, etc.).  I am trying
to work directly from source data and the number of the spreadsheets I
would have to go through make reformatting one by one a pain.  I have
found lots of ways to read excel files, but my question is whether
there is a way to only read "parts" of excel files.  Ex.  Specify
cells (A1:G20), specify rows and columns to start reading at? Or will
I have to hack things together after the fact?

The URL below will let you download an example .xls of the kind of
thing I am working with:
http://www.filedropper.com/exampletable_1
I only want/need the "Code" column names, and the "Code" row names,
and the values. What would be the best way of automating the reading
of these spreadsheets?

Many thanks,
Peter