How to extract images (and media files) from Word and Keynote documents
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We've all been there: we worked on a Microsoft Word or Macos Keynote document, pasted lots of images/screenshots, crafted a beautiful storyline, and moved on with our lives.
A few weeks later, we have another use case for the embedded high-res images, but now they're gone. Maybe we deleted the original files, or they're buried somewhere in our email inboxes; who knows... We see the files right in front of us in Keynote or Word, but there doesn't seem to be a way to get our own images out of these programs. It's 2020; how can it be so hard?
Today I came across a tweet from Chris Heilmann that gave the solution. He shared that docx and key files are zip archives.
Follow these steps to extract your images and media files from Word and Keynote files:
- Copy the
docxorkeyfile that embeds your media files. - Rename and change the file extension of the copy to
zip(e.g.presentationshould become.key presentation)..zip - Unpack the renamed copy.
- Access your media files in full glory and resolution!
If you're a developer and want to save some manual steps, I published the CLI tool extract-media that does the renaming and unpacking in one go.
Yes? Cool! You might want to check out Web Weekly for more quick learnings. The last edition went out 14 days ago.
Frontend nerd with over ten years of experience, freelance dev, "Today I Learned" blogger, conference speaker, and Open Source maintainer.