How to extract data from a chart in Excel

An Excel chart is just a visualization on top of a source range. If the range still exists, getting the data is trivial. If it doesn't — or you only have the chart, not the workbook — there are still three reliable ways out.

1. Source range is intact

Right-click the chart → Select Data. The dialog shows the exact range powering each series. Highlight it, copy, paste somewhere else. Done.

If you want a quick text dump of every series for inspection, hover over a series and Excel shows the SERIES formula in the formula bar — it lists the source range explicitly.

2. Chart with no visible source (someone hid or deleted the data range)

Excel still keeps the data inside the chart object. Right-click the chart → Save as Picture won't help, but right-click → Edit Data (on Excel for Mac) or clicking into the chart and using the Design ribbon's "Edit Data in Excel" pops a hidden sheet with the underlying values. Copy them into a real worksheet.

Older trick that still works: change the chart type briefly to Table, the data appears as a table beneath the plot, copy it, change back.

3. You only have an image of the chart

This is the case people actually struggle with — the chart is in a PDF, a screenshot, a slide deck, and the original workbook is gone or inaccessible.

Two routes:

• WebPlotDigitizer (free, browser-based) — manually click the axes and each data point. Accurate but tedious for more than 10–20 points.
• ExtractFox's chart data extractor — drop the image in, get the underlying series back as a table. Faster than digitizing by hand for anything with more than a handful of points.

Edge case: chart with confidential underlying data

If the workbook owner deliberately removed the source data and only kept the chart, recovering the numbers via any of these methods may not be intended use. Worth a quick check before you proceed — sometimes the chart is the deliverable, not the data.