I recently needed to export several charts and equations from a Microsoft Word document for publishing on the web. But Word didn't seem to have an Export... feature for individual embedded objects.
The solution was to use the Mac OS X printing system's "Save as PDF..." feature (available in every print dialog box). Select an item to export, choose "Print...", click the "Selection" button to work with just the item rather than the entire document or a page range, then click on "Save as PDF...". Choose a location and filename for the result, and you'll have a PDF containing just the item you needed to export.
To get the item into a more web-friendly format, open the PDF in Preview.app and use its "Export..." option to save the object in any of the dozen or so formats it supports.
[robg adds: Another way to accomplish the same thing is to use the system's region screen grab feature (Shift-Command-4) to save an on-screen selection into a PDF screenshot file, which you can then open directly in Preview or Photoshop. Even quicker, if you add the Control key to the mix, the image will be captured to the clipboard, ready for pasting into the application of your choice.]
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20030408140151211