Good Word doc -> plain text conversion

[jc-8FIgwK2HfyJMuWfdjsoA/w at public.gmane.org (jc-8FIgwK2HfyJMuWfdjsoA/w at public.gmane.org)]

Anyone here have advice on programs (scriptable and  usable
on linux) that convert Word docs to plain text?

I've been googling, of course, but most of the  things  I'm
finding start with "1.  Load the file into Word". This is a
good clue that the scheme  probably  can't  be  used  in  a
script that's running on a linux system.  ;-)

There are also quite a lot of things advertised  that  cost
hundreds of dollars ...

The situation might be familiar to a few people  here.   We
have some docs arriving from any of a flock of sources, but
when we ask that they not send Word docs,  and  send  plain
text  or  PDF  or  whatever,  they don't have any idea what
we're talking about (or what a "word doc" might  be,  since
all  documents  contain  words),  and  proceed  to  send us
another Word .doc file.  It's not feasible  to  teach  them
about  such  arcane technical concepts as document formats.
So we pretty much have to accept  whatever  their  computer
sends,  and  find a way to convert it to something that our
software can make sense of.


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 <:#/>  John Chambers
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