catdoc(1)

NAME
catdoc - reads MS-Word file and puts its content as plain text on standard output

SYNOPSIS
catdoc [-aswth] files...

DESCRIPTION
catdoc behaves much like cat(1) but reads MS-Word file and produces human-readable text on standard output. Optionally it can use latex(1) escape sequences for characters which have special meaning for LaTeX. It also makes some effort to recognize MS-Word tables, although it never tries to write correct headers for LaTeX tabular environment.

catdoc can be invoked as filter, if you supply "-" instead of filename, but it is probably useless. It could be removed in future versions, because true parsing of Word files (fast saves, footnotes) requires seekable output.

OPTIONS

-a  - converts non-standard printable char into readable form (default). Separates table columns with TAB

-t  - converts all printable chars, which have special meaning for LaTeX(1) into appropriate control sequences. Separates table columns by &.

-w  disables word wrapping. By default catdoc output is splitted into lines not longer than 72 characters and paragraphs are separated by a blank line. With this option each paragraph is one long line.

-s  exits with non-zero exit code, if MS-Word signature is not found before first printable paragraph, producing no output.

-h  - displays brief usage message and exits

All options affect only files, specified after them in command line.

BUGS
Can produce garbage, if file contains embedded illustrations. Doesn't handle fast-saves properly. Prints footnotes as separate paragraphs at the end of file, instead of producing correct LaTeX commands.

AUTHOR
V.B.Wagner <vitus@fe.msk.su>