Extract text from doc and docx

Question

I would like to know how can I read the contents of a doc or docx. I'm using a Linux VPS and PHP, but if there is a simpler solution using other language, please let me know, as long as it works under a linux webserver.

Answer 1

This is a .DOCX solution only. For .DOC or .PDF you'll need to use something else like pdf2text.php for PDF

function docx2text($filename) {
   return readZippedXML($filename, "word/document.xml");
 }

function readZippedXML($archiveFile, $dataFile) {
// Create new ZIP archive
$zip = new ZipArchive;

// Open received archive file
if (true === $zip->open($archiveFile)) {
    // If done, search for the data file in the archive
    if (($index = $zip->locateName($dataFile)) !== false) {
        // If found, read it to the string
        $data = $zip->getFromIndex($index);
        // Close archive file
        $zip->close();
        // Load XML from a string
        // Skip errors and warnings
        $xml = new DOMDocument();
    $xml->loadXML($data, LIBXML_NOENT | LIBXML_XINCLUDE | LIBXML_NOERROR | LIBXML_NOWARNING);
        // Return data without XML formatting tags
        return strip_tags($xml->saveXML());
    }
    $zip->close();
}

// In case of failure return empty string
return "";
}

echo docx2text("test.docx"); // Save this contents to file