Extract OLE Objects from Workbook with C++

Sometimes, you need to extract OLE objects from a workbook. Aspose.Cells supports extracting and saving those OLE objects.

This article shows how to create a console application in Visual Studio and extract different OLE objects from a workbook with a few simple lines of code.

Extract OLE Objects from a Workbook

Creating a Template Workbook

1. Create a workbook in Microsoft Excel.
2. Add a Microsoft Word document, an Excel workbook, and a PDF document as OLE objects on the first worksheet.

Template document with OLE objects (OleFile.xls)

Next, extract the OLE objects and save them to the hard disk with their respective file types.

Download and Install Aspose.Cells

1. Download Aspose.Cells for C++.
2. Install it on your development computer.

All Aspose components, when installed, work in evaluation mode. The evaluation mode has no time limit and it only injects watermarks into produced documents.

Create a Project

Start Visual Studio and create a new console application. This example will show a C++ console application.

1. Add References
   1. Add a reference to the Aspose.Cells component to your project, for example, add a reference to …\Program Files\Aspose\Aspose.Cells\Bin\Net1.0\Aspose.Cells.dll.

Extract OLE Objects

The code below does the actual work of finding and extracting OLE objects. The OLE objects (DOC, XLS, and PDF files) are saved to disk.

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <memory>
#include <string>
#include "Aspose.Cells.h"

using namespace Aspose::Cells;
using namespace Aspose::Cells::Drawing;

int main()
{
    Aspose::Cells::Startup();

    // Source directory path
    U16String srcDir(u"..\\Data\\01_SourceDirectory\\");

    // Open the template file
    Workbook workbook(srcDir + u"oleFile.xlsx");

    // Get the OleObject Collection in the first worksheet
    OleObjectCollection oles = workbook.GetWorksheets().Get(0).GetOleObjects();

    // Loop through all the oleobjects and extract each object in the worksheet
    for (int i = 0; i < oles.GetCount(); i++)
    {
        OleObject ole = oles.Get(i);

        // Specify the output filename
        U16String fileName = srcDir + u"outOle" + U16String(std::to_string(i).c_str()) + u".";

        // Specify each file format based on the oleobject format type
        switch (ole.GetFileFormatType())
        {
            case FileFormatType::Doc:
                fileName += u"doc";
                break;
            case FileFormatType::Excel97To2003:
                fileName += u"Xlsx";
                break;
            case FileFormatType::Ppt:
                fileName += u"Ppt";
                break;
            case FileFormatType::Pdf:
                fileName += u"Pdf";
                break;
            case FileFormatType::Unknown:
                fileName += u"Jpg";
                break;
            default:
                // Handle other formats if needed
                break;
        }

        // Save the oleobject as a new excel file if the object type is xls
        if (ole.GetFileFormatType() == FileFormatType::Xlsx)
        {
            Vector<uint8_t> objectData = ole.GetObjectData();
            if (objectData.GetLength() > 0)
            {
                Workbook oleBook(objectData);
                oleBook.GetSettings().SetIsHidden(false);
                oleBook.Save(srcDir + u"outOle" + U16String(std::to_string(i).c_str()) + u".out.xlsx");
            }
        }
        // Create the files based on the oleobject format types
        else
        {
            Vector<uint8_t> objectData = ole.GetObjectData();
            if (objectData.GetLength() > 0)
            {
                std::ofstream fs(fileName.ToUtf8().c_str(), std::ios::binary);
                fs.write(reinterpret_cast<const char*>(objectData.GetData()), objectData.GetLength());
                fs.close();
            }
        }
    }

    Aspose::Cells::Cleanup();
    return 0;
}