Format matching in .doc files

[ivar4ever]

how to search for a particular format in MS word documents?
i tried thru a c program, but since the headder and encoding formats vary a lot was unable to do that.
my task is to search for a specific string in a .doc file with a script (either VB, or Perl)
any advices please?

 

[rsrinivas]

hi
have u tried with the doc file it should work.
else if u r using perl u can copy the .doc fileto a .txt file and do it. then copy it back to .doc

 

[ivar4ever]

i tried reading a doc file through a c program and placing the content into a .txt file. but nothing appeared in the generated .txt file and its size is 0 KB.
when i tried to read a .rtf file and copied the content to .txt, the text inside the word document is coming along with some headder information.
cant we directly compare the doc files using perl?
since the encoding formats for ms word will vary vastly with the office version, it would be difficult to do.