Getting PHP to read .doc files on Linux

Question

I\'m trying to read a .doc file into a database so that I can index it\'s contents. Is there an easy way for PHP on Linux to read .doc files? Failing that is it possible to

Answer 1

DOC files are stored in binary format which there hasn't been any purely php written classes in dealing with them.

RTF files are much easier to parse, being mostly text you can just open them up with fopen and read the contents.

I would suggest using RTF if you can, as there really is not a sound solution for DOC files yet.