Yes, you can import files from other forms. For example, readxl is one (of several, I believe) package that allows you to import .xls and .xlsx files into R:
There are some nice tutorials on other formats here:
https://garthtarr.github.io/meatR/rio.html
You can also search for file types or software programs with R in google, or a more specialized search engine such as RDocumentation. Here is a link where I've searched for "matlab":
https://www.rdocumentation.org/search?q=matlab