How to extract text from Excel shapes

[pollyo]

I need to extract the text from Excel shapes, but the "Extract data from window" step only returns the name of the shape, and the sheet is protected so I cannot use "Edit Text". Any tips?

[rolign]

You can always try extracting text with OCR.

Is there any way you can click the Shapes with mouse or send keys? Then you could do a ctrl+a ctrl+c with send keys and get the text to clipboard.

[pollyo]

Thanks for the reply.

Right-click does nothing and left-click opens an editor window, which is the clunky workaround I am using now to validate the text. That works for now, but code changes could break the relationship and I would not know it.

I can look at using OCR.

[VJR]

@pollyo 

Any specific reason you are not unprotecting the sheet using a vbscript or a macro and then making it easy to extract the text?

[pollyo]

@VJR Thanks, it may come to that but I'm wary of embedding passwords and the unprotect/edit/protect sequence is another possible point of failure.