Export Excel graphs as vector graphics files (e.g. SVGs)?

1. Select your Microsoft Excel plots.
2. Copy.
3. Open Microsoft PowerPoint.
4. Paste-special as enhanced metafile (EMF) into an otherwise empty slide.
5. Save your PowerPoint slide as an "other format" file, and choose "EMF" (Enhanced Windows Metafile).
6. Import your EMF file into InkScape and ungroup the object.
7. Delete all the A4-sized crappy blank space from the image and enjoy.

Try Gnumeric. It supports exporting graphs to SVG natively. There's a windows version, too. So, the toolchain would be Excel -> Gnumeric -> SVG, or even Gnumeric -> SVG without using Excel. IMHO it's the easiest way to get your graph in SVG.

Using Excel 2007 under Windows XP, I also discovered that copied graphs get pasted as bitmaps in Inkscape. This is different than the behaviour of Excel 2003 on Windows 7.

I found a workaround -- if you select the cells surrounding the graph (which would include the graph as well) and copy, you can paste a vector graphic in Inkscape just as expected. The only slight downside is that you have to manually remove the grid of excel cells which is left below your graphics.

Newer versions of PowerPoint allow you to Save&Send as PDF. Use that feature to create a PDF file, then open that in Inkscape and edit by ungrouping, then resize the page to the drawing and save as SVG.