ExtractFoxTutorial
Every tutorial post on the ExtractFox blog.
How to extract data from a chart in Excel
Get the underlying numbers back out of an Excel chart — even if the source range was deleted, the workbook is locked, or you only have the chart as an image.
How to extract images from a PDF
From a one-off Preview save to batch extraction with pdfimages, pypdf, or iText — every realistic way to pull every embedded image out of a PDF at full quality.
How to extract a zip file (Mac, Windows, Linux, Android)
What "extracting a file" actually means, the one-click way to do it on every major OS, and how to handle the file that won't open.
How to extract data from a pivot table in Excel
GETPIVOTDATA, Show Details, copying values, and converting a pivot back into a flat table — the four ways to get data out of an Excel pivot, and when each one is the right call.
How to extract RAR, tar.gz, jar, and other archive formats
Beyond zip — every other archive format you'll meet (RAR, 7z, tar.gz, gz, jar, war, ear) and the right tool for each on every OS.
How to extract data from Zillow listings
Zillow doesn't offer a public scraping API and actively blocks bots. Here's how to get listing data into a spreadsheet without getting your IP banned — and the legal lines to stay behind.
How to extract photos and frames from a video
Pull a still from a video — on iPhone, Android, in DaVinci Resolve, with FFmpeg, or from a YouTube URL. The right tool depends on whether you want one frame or every frame.
How to extract text from a PowerPoint file
Three ways to pull text out of .pptx files — the built-in outline view, scripting with python-pptx, and image-based extraction for slides where the text is baked into pictures.
How to extract EXIF and GPS metadata from a photo
Where the photo was taken, what camera made it, when it was shot, even the focal length — every JPEG carries it. Here's how to read EXIF from a photo and the privacy lines you should know about.
How to extract images from a website (or a URL)
Browser tools, wget, gallery-dl, and the legal lines around scraping images from sites like Instagram, Pinterest, and stock photography. What's safe, what's gray, and what to skip.
How to extract metadata from a video file
FFprobe, MediaInfo, and yt-dlp — three tools that cover every format from MP4 to MKV to a YouTube URL. What each one is best at, and what you can pull out.
How to extract hyperlinks from Excel and Google Sheets
Excel hides hyperlinks behind display text — getting the actual URL out takes a HYPERLINK trick or a tiny VBA function. Google Sheets has its own quirks. Here's the full set.
How to extract images from Google Docs and Google Slides
Three reliable ways to get every image out of a Google Doc or Slides deck — with or without losing resolution — including the publish-to-web trick that beats every other method.
How to extract a signature from a PDF or an image
Whether you need to verify a signature exists, lift it as a transparent PNG for reuse, or pull every signed name as text — here are the right tools for each version of the question.
How to extract images from a Word document
The fastest way to pull every image out of a .docx file at original resolution — using nothing more than the file extension trick that works in any unzip tool.
How to extract numbers from a cell in Excel
Whether you need digits out of a product code, an order ID, or a free-text field, here are the formulas (old and new), the Power Query route, and what to do when the data isn't actually in Excel yet.
How to extract metadata from a website
Title tags, Open Graph, Twitter cards, JSON-LD structured data — what every page exposes and how to pull it out cleanly for SEO audits, link previews, or content indexing.
Built-in image-to-text features in Mac, OneNote, and Excel
Live Text on macOS, OneNote's Copy Text from Picture, and Excel's Data from Picture — the OCR features already on your machine that most people don't know exist.
How to extract a table from a Word document
Native Word-to-Excel paste, python-docx for scripting, and what to do when the table is actually a screenshot inside the document.
How to extract embedded files and attachments from a PDF
PDFs can carry attached files — Excel sheets, source data, supporting docs. Acrobat shows them; most other readers don't. Here's how to get them out, on any OS.
How to extract zip and postal codes from addresses (Excel, Sheets, Python)
Three reliable patterns for pulling postal codes out of free-text addresses — Excel formulas for clean US data, regex for international, libpostal when nothing else works.
How to extract video links from a YouTube playlist
Three ways to get every video URL from a YouTube playlist into a flat list — yt-dlp for scripts, the official API for production, and the browser console for one-offs.
How to extract phone numbers from text
A regex that handles most cases, the libphonenumber library that handles the rest, and what to do when the phone numbers are trapped inside PDFs, screenshots, or messaging exports.
How to extract text from a YouTube video
Three reliable ways to turn a YouTube video into searchable, citable text — using the built-in transcript, yt-dlp + Whisper, or browser tools — and when each one is the right call.
How to extract formulas from an Excel file or PDF
Showing all formulas in a sheet, exporting them programmatically with openpyxl, and pulling math from a PDF where the formulas are rendered images, not LaTeX.
How to extract code from a video tutorial
Three workflows for getting the source code out of a programming tutorial video — from manual frame capture to a full transcript-plus-screenshot pipeline.
How to extract a summary from a PDF, video, or article
Three classes of summarization tools (extractive, abstractive, hybrid), how each one fails, and the practical setup for getting a useful 10-line summary out of a 90-minute talk or 300-page report.
How to extract data from Amazon product pages
Title, price, ASIN, ratings, variations — Amazon makes it hard to scrape and easy to misuse APIs. Here are the legitimate options, the gray ones, and the screenshot-based fallback.