Super Fast Way To Batch Convert Word Doc Files To Text Files
OK, so converting Doc files into text probably isn’t the kind of thing you’ll need to do daily. (If that’s the case, could be you need to leave the house more often!)
Very likely it’s a sudden, immediate kind of need - possibly as a result of a request from your boss. Suddenly, your desk is full of Word format “doc” files that need changing into plain old text files (the ones with the .txt file extension. The thing is, Microsoft Word adds all sorts of formatting and other things to make your documents “what you see is what you get” and chances are that you need just the raw information from the files.
What’s more, they’re wanted very urgently. Like this minute. Immediately.
If you’ve only got a handful of files to convert into text then the simplest method is to use the “Save as” option in Word. That does work. So long as you can put up with Word telling you over again that all your formatting will be forever lost. Yeah, whatever, you knew that already and sure don’t need to be told it every single time you want to save a file as text.
But what can you do if you’ve got tens, hundreds or even thousands of doc files to convert?
Word’s macro option might work for you. Or, if you’re a normal human being, you could spend the next hour fruitlessly trying to get the macro to do what you thought you’d asked it to.
Absolutely the easiest way there is to convert a whole folder or even a complete CD jammed full of Word doc files is to use a custom designed piece of software like Doc2Text. If you can drag and drop files in Windows, you can convert files to your heart’s content. Really, really fast - around 150 files a minute.
Sure, there are other programs out there that do the same thing but they’re more expensive (by an order of magnitude). You can check out Doc2Text for free here.