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How To Extract Images From Office Documents

Martin Brinkmann — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:44:06 +0000

Office documents may contain images and other media besides text. I sometimes get article suggestions by email in Microsoft Word format. These articles often contain one or multiple images that I need to extract, since it is not possible to copy and paste them into the article on the Internet as it is with text contents.

Depending on the number of pictures it may be faster to save each manually from within the Office document, or use a third party application like Office Image Extraction Wizard to let the computer do all the hard work. The latter may speed things up considerably if you need to extract images from multiple documents.

You can save images in Office documents by right-clicking them in the Office program and selecting Save as Picture from the context menu.

That’s fine if one or two images are embedded in the document. The core benefit of using a software program is that it takes away the tedious process of right-clicking and saving images. Plus, it can be a lot faster.

Office Image Extraction Wizard can extract images and pictures from a variety of formats. It supports the Office formats docx, pptx and xlsx, the OpenDocument Formats odp, ods and odt and the epub and cbz formats.

It unfortunately does not support doc, xls or ppt documents which seems like a big oversight. You can convert those document formats into support formats though.

Office Image Extraction Wizard supports single document and batch document extraction. Just load documents either via drag and drop or the built-in file browser into the interface. The computer desktop is automatically selected as the output directory. You can change that if you prefer a different directory for the images.

The program then extracts all pictures from all documents. Batch mode users have the option to store images in separate folders which may be handy to avoid them getting mixed up. Images are always extracted in their natural format (that is their original format used by the document creator or editor) and without processing or compressing to ensure maximum quality.

Windows users can download Office Image Extraction Wizard from the developer website. The program is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Better Office Doc Preview appears in GMail

Mike Halsey MVP — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 07:09:26 +0000

The war of the webmail is raging on with the continued roll out of Microsoft’s new Hotmail service. Now Google is coming back with new features to it’s own GMail service, the first of which was quietly announced over the weekend.

The company has added a one-click preview for the world’s most common file format, Microsoft Word documents. In a statement on the GMail blog they said…

If you receive Microsoft® Word files as attachments in Gmail, you can now view them with a single click — no need to download, save, and open files with a desktop application when you just want read them. The Google Docs viewer that allows you to view .pdf, .ppt, and .tiff files in your browser now supports .doc and .docx formats too.
Just click the “View” link at the bottom of a Gmail message and the viewer will take it from there. If you decide you want to edit the file, clicking “Edit online” will open it in Google Docs, or you can download it to your desktop from there.

Clearly here though the reason for this is a push to remind people about the company’s own Docs service, their cloud office ‘suite’ after the recent launch of Microsoft Office Live, the new free on-line version of Microsoft Office 2010 featuring the ribbon.

Whatever their commercial reasons for doing this, it’s going to be a good move for consumers as anything that makes users lives easier will always be a good move. However is there a potential security risk with this new one-click viewer.

Word documents, lets not forget, are also a favourite for virus writers to hide their malicious code in. Having the user being able to open the file in the browser could be a god-send for them, potentially being able to expose a user to a virus without their PC’s anti-virus software seeing it.

Which brings me back to how do you want to preview and open your files. Is this new feature excellent and a real time saver, or is it a huge security risk waiting to happen. I for one will continue to download all attachments and virus scan them before opening them.

Recover Corrupt Word Documents [Windows]

Martin Brinkmann — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:13:53 +0000

A corrupt Word document can mean potential disaster especially in a business environment. But there are other situations where an unreadable Word document can cause lots of problems for the owner of the file. One possible option to recover the text information of the Word document is to open it in a text editor like Notepad. This however does not work for the new Microsoft Office formats that Microsoft introduced in the 2007 release of the popular Office suite.

The remaining option is a file recovery software to recover the text. Damaged docx2txt is one of those programs. The recovery application can be downloaded from the developer’s website. The website is offering an online recovery option as well but most users will probably prefer the offline recovery solution especially when privacy is an issue.

The free portable program will launch a new command window which in turn will load the application’s interface. There are only three controls offered by the program. The user can load corrupt Word documents if they are available in the docx format from the file menu. The recovery program tries to recover the text of the Word document loaded by the user. The contents recovered are instantly displayed in the program’s interface from where they can be copied and pasted or saved from the File menu.

The recovery software is limited to docx documents which is somewhat disappointing but it works nicely for corrupted docx documents. The program can be downloaded from the developer’s website. It is compatible with most Windows operating systems and requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.

Update: The website is no longer available. You can try Microsoft’s official guides on how to recover data from corrupt or no longer opening Word documents. The guides are available on this web page.

Restore Data From Corrupt Excel And Word Documents

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:21:45 +0000

It is sometimes not possible to load Excel or Word documents into Microsoft Office or alternative Office programs due to corruption. The only options available at this point is to open them in a plain text editor or program that is specialized to recover the data contained in these documents.

Damaged Docx 2 Txt and Corrupt Xlsx 2 Csv are two portable software programs for the Windows operating system that can recover data from corrupt Microsoft Excel 2007 and Microsoft Word 2007 documents. The programs require the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0. Both programs have been developed by the same software developer and work therefor similar. The user has to load a Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word document into the program in the first step. This can take a while depending on the size and complexity of the document.

All accessible worksheets or pages will be displayed in the program’s interface after the document has been analyzed by the software program.

The data of one or all Excel worksheets can then be exported into a Csv file. A similar process is applied to Word documents which can be exported into the Txt format. Both programs only work with the Office 2007 Word and Excel formats and not the former standard formats. They can be downloaded from the developer’s website.

Google Docs Adds Docx And Xlsx Support

Martin Brinkmann — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 08:34:55 +0000

Microsoft’s decision to change the default file format in Office 2007 for some of its most popular Office programs has caused some confusion and controversy, especially shortly after introduction. Back then no one was able to open the docx, xlsx or pptx file formats if they would not have Microsoft Office installed. This changed quickly as Microsoft released the Office 2007 compatibility suite for previous installments of Microsoft Office. Users without Microsoft Office were able to work with the new formats in Open Office or use online converters to convert them to traditional Office documents.

The Google Docs team on the other hand was reserved and did not add support for these file formats until now. Today, they announced that they finally added support for both the docx (that is for Microsoft Word 2007 documents) and xlsx (Microsoft Excel 2007 spreadsheets) format in Google Docs.

Support in this case means that users can upload files with the docx and xlsx extension to Google Docs. The size limitations are 500 Kilobytes for docx documents and 1 Megabyte for xlsx spreadsheets.

The document can then be edited in Google Docs just like any other document. There is however no option to save documents to a local computer system in the docx or xlsx format yet. Google Docs will automatically convert the documents to doc or xls format.

Docx And Xlsx Data Recovery Software

Martin Brinkmann — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:52:08 +0000

Dealing with corrupted Word documents or Excel spreadsheets especially without access to backups of those documents either because they have not been created in first place or because they are inaccessible in the current location. The only way to deal with corrupted documents is data recovery software. Docx2txt and Xlsx2csv have been specifically created to recover data from corrupted Microsoft Office 2007 Word and Excel documents that have been saved in the new docx and xlsx formats.

Both data recovery tools are portable programs that can be executed after unpacking them. The interface looks similar in both applications. It offers options to load and save docx and xlsx files. It will analyze the selected document and try to recover its text and values. The recovered document will then be displayed in the interface of the programs. The displayed data can be edited right away or saved as txt or csv files for further editing in programs that are better suited for editing the data.

The main advantage of both Docx2txt and Xlsx2csv is that they can easily be put on a DVD or USB stick to have them nearby when all other means of recovering the data of docx or xlsx documents fails. Docx2txt and Xlsx2csv (via Addictive Tips) have a size of less than 4 Megabytes each and can be directly downloaded from the developers webpage. They are compatible with all Microsoft NT based operating systems since Windows 2000 including Windows XP and Windows Vista. They also require the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0.

Document Viewer TextMaker Viewer 2009

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 01 May 2009 23:35:38 +0000

Users who regularly work with document formats like doc, docx or odt usually install one of the larger Office suites like Microsoft Office or Open Office on their computer system to do so. Many use the same programs for viewing those document formats as well. While they are compatible with most of them they do start relatively slowly on most systems which makes them less than ideal for this purpose. The default document viewers on the other hand cannot open several popular document formats which means that they are not the best choice either.

TextMaker Viewer 2009 is a free document viewer that supports a wide range of different document formats. It basically combines the supported formats of Microsoft Office 2007 with those of Open Office in a fast loading interface.

Supported are the following formats in the latest version of TextMaker Viewer:

.docx, .docm Microsoft Word 2007
.sxw OpenOffice.org/StarOffice Text
.dotx, .dotm Microsoft Word 2007 templates
.rtf Rich Text Format
.doc Microsoft Word 6.0 up to Word 2007
.psw Pocket Word (Pocket PC)
.dot Microsoft Word templates 6.0 up to 2007
.pwd Pocket Word (Handheld PC)
.tmd TextMaker 6.0 up to 2008
.htm/html HTML documents
.odt OpenDocument Text
.txt Text files (DOS, Windows, Unicode, UTF-8)

The document viewer comes with a few additional features like zooming in or out of the document or viewing it in full screen. Documents can also be printed on the local computer system. A little bit annoying is the “nag” screen at the beginning that can be used to enter registration information. Users have to press skip to continue. It will not appear as long as they keep the document viewer open.

Are you using a specific program to view documents? If so let us know in the comments.

Open XML Docx Viewer

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 08:32:13 +0000

The introduction of the new Microsoft Office XML formats (docx, pptx, xlsx) have caused some confusion by users of previous Microsoft Office releases as their versions were not able to open the new document formats by default. The same was true for users without access to any version of Microsoft Office 2007. Several ways to open docx files have emerged pretty soon after the initial release; One of them is the Open XML Viewer which is basically offered as a plugin for the web browser Firefox.

The document viewer only supports the new docx file format at this point but as this is the most commonly encountered format it should suffice for the moment. The web browser add-on is available for both the Windows and Linux operating system and supplied as a xpi file which can be loaded and installed easily. Another version for the command line of both operating systems is provided as well.

The web browser plugin works by simply dragging and dropping docx documents into a Firefox tab or window. The add-on will automatically process the document and display it in the web browser. There is currently no direct way to open docx files that are linked from websites but it is possible to associate the Firefox web browser with the docx format in the operating system to either open the documents automatically or on right-click and selection with it.

The next installment of the Open XML Document Viewer is slated for a April 2009 release which will add support for the Opera and Internet Explorer web browser, server side support, document themes and drawing shapes.

Google Docs Adds Office Excel 2007 XLSX Support

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:04:15 +0000

While Google Mail (Gmail) is already able to process Office 2007 file formats such as xlsx, docx or pptx by converting them to html format so that they can be viewed online Google Docs could not until now. This is kinda strange as one would think that Google Docs would be the primary application to display the Office XML formats. Google’s priority seemed to have been different. The developers have finally started to begin adding support for the new Office 2007 file formats beginning with the Excel 2007 format xlsx.

Not all pages have been updated in Google Docs with the information about the added Excel 2007 xlsx support. The upload page for example is not listing the new format as supported. The two other Microsoft Office 2007 file formats, that is Word 2007 with docx and PowerPoint 2007 with pptx, are not yet supported but it is very likely that the Google Docs team will add support for those file formats eventually.

The data transfer of the xlsx files produces good but not excellent results. The color highlighting of a test Excel 2007 file was for example not displayed on the Google Docs page of the document. The main information on the other hand were all displayed the way they looked in the real Office Excel document.

Default To Doc in Word 2007

Martin Brinkmann — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:22:51 +0000

It seems that Lifehacker is having Ghacks week which I personally do not mind but the amount of articles that they referred to is stunning. I found reference to another blog that had a tutorial on how to change the default save format in Word 2007 from Docx to Doc.

I had some problems in the past when I saved documents in Word 2007 in docx format only to get cries for help of users who could not open the document because they were using a previous version of Word. I had the option to explain to them how they could open it (convert online or download the compatibility pack) or convert it to doc and send it to them again.

This happened several times and I finally decided to look for an option to change the default save format in Word. The article at Technix Update reminded me of that and I thought it would be nice to post the quick tutorial as well.

All that needs to be done is to open Word 2007. Once open a click on the Office icon on top and a selection of Word Options loads the menu where the default format can be changed. Just select Save in the left pane and pick Word 97-2003 Documents instead of the default Word Document.

A document that is simply saved will from now on have the file extension doc and not docx. I have not checked but I assume similar options are available for Excel and Powerpoint.

Ways to open Office .docx documents

Martin Brinkmann — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 22:47:04 +0000

How do I open .docx files was an article that I wrote some time ago. It explained how users that did not use Microsoft Office 2007 were able to open .docx documents that they downloaded or received from users who were using Office 2007. Some time has passed since writing the initial article and I thought it would be nice to take a look at more methods and programs that let users open. docx documents.

The best suited method to open .docx documents depends largely on your computer system. Are you using a Macintosh, Linux or Windows ? Do you have an old version of Microsoft Office installed ? What’s the purpose of opening the docx document, do you only want to read it or do you have to edit it as well ?

The best way for Windows users who have a version of Microsoft Office installed is to install the Microsoft compatibility pack for previous Office versions that adds .docx support in Microsoft Word.

The best approach for users that do not use Microsoft Office, including Mac and Linux users, would be to use one of the several online converters that convert docx files into doc.

Windows users could also download the Word Viewer application from Microsoft that opens .docx documents properly but cannot alter them.

Last but not least it is possible to use the OpenOffice. OpenXML Translator to open docx documents if you have the Novell version of Open Office installed. I did not test it with the normal Open Office application, if someone did please mention if it succeeded in the comments.

How do I open docx files ?

Martin Brinkmann — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 09:04:36 +0000

Microsoft introduced the .docx file format in its new Office and Word applications and wants it to replace the commonly used doc format. The problem with the change from doc to docx is that many users are still working with prior versions of Word or no Microsoft product at all and face the problem that they can’t load the docx file because it is not supported in their application.

The main question for those users is of course how they would open a docx file to be able to read and work with it. The answer is that it depends on what program and computer the user is working with. Let me outline several possibilities to open and work with docx file without using the latest Microsoft Office or Word software.

Older versions of Microsoft Office or Microsoft Word:

Older versions such as Office XP do not support the docx format because it was not known when they were developed and sold. A simple way to read docx and xlsx files in those applications would be to install the Microsoft Compatibility Pack which adds support for the new file formats.

Open Office

You can use the Open XML Translator for Open Office to be able to read and edit docx files with Open Office.

Online Solution

The docx converter lets you convert docx documents online. This is a pretty good solution if you don’t want to install the previously mentioned add-ons.

Macintosh

You might want to use the Online Solution above or download a desktop widget from the same developers. If you happen to use Microsoft Office on your Mac you might want to take a look at the Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter for Mac.