How to extract images from Word Document from Linux?

Question

Is there a (Linux) command-line tool to extract all the images from a MS Word document, (preferably one that could handle the .docx format)?

Answer 1

This is a lot simpler than you think it is and to be honest you probably have the tool already. The tool you need is just unzip as all .docx documents are simply just zip files.

If you're on a Debian based system apt (or apt-get) install unzip

if you're on a system that uses yum: yum install unzip

once you have the command unzip run this command first and you can see the exact file path for whatever you're specifically trying to extract.

unzip -l filename

 or you can get a little more detailed information that will still show you the file path with

zipinfo filename

Once you do either of those commands you will see that all the images in any .docx file are saved under word/media/

So to extract only the pictures from the .docx file would look as follows

unzip filename "word/media/*"

I know on my system you don't need to run quotes on $2("word/media/*")

but make sure you include the * wildcard after word/media/ to get all the pictures in the file.

If you want a specific file you can also specify that specific file. (You would no longer use the * wildcard.)

If you can't find the zipinfo command unzip -Z is the same thing.