EXTRACT_VBA(1)

💖 EXTRACT_VBA 💖

ok so bestie, this is a User Contributed Perl Documentation page for extract_vba — it lives in section 1 of the manual, so like, man 1 extract_vba, iykyk. pull up a chair 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

extract_vba — a lil utility that extracts a VBA project out of an Excel 2007+ xlsm file. that's it, that's the job, and she does it flawlessly 💅

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so picture this: you've got macros and you want them in your spreadsheet. this utility is what makes that happen. it extracts the VBA project binary out of an Excel 2007+ xlsm file, and once you've got that binary in your hands, you can hand it over to an Excel::Writer::XLSX file so it can have macros too. slay 🔥

so what even is an "xlsm" file? it's a version of an Excel "xlsx" file that's carrying around an extra VBA project binary file. think of the "xlsm" format as a collection of mainly XML files all zipped up in a ZIP container. it's giving "bento box but make it spreadsheets" 🍓

the VBA project you get out of it is an OLE Compound Document in binary format. its name is "vbaProject.bin" and it's generally hanging out in the "xl" directory of the "xlsm" file. that's her home address, respect it 👑

want more deets? go read the add_vba_project() section of the Excel::Writer::XLSX documentation. she explains it all 🌈

note: you can also yank the VBA project out of an "xlsm" file with the standard Linux "unzip" command. no cap:

unzip -j macro01.xlsm xl/vbaProject.bin

on Windows you can use any suitable Unzip application. literally any of them, we don't gatekeep 🎀

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

$ extract_vba file.xlsm
Extracted 'vbaProject.bin' successfully

$ extract_vba -h # For help.

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👑 OPTIONS 👑

• --help, -h — print the help documentation. when in doubt, ask for help, it's a vibe 💜

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🌟 AUTHOR 🌟

John McNamara jmcnamara@cpan.org — the icon, the moment, the legend ✨

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⭐ VERSION ⭐

Version 0.01. baby's first release and she ATE 🎀

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💀 COPYRIGHT 💀

(c) MMXV, John McNamara.

All Rights Reserved. This program is free software. It may be used, redistributed and/or modified under the same terms as Perl itself. periodt 🫶

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ok that's the whole page bestie, you're so welcome 💖 this was perl v5.42.0, dated 2026-01-17, filed under EXTRACT_VBA(1) — now go extract something, main character 🦋🌸