Grep .doc and .docx

Question

Level 1

9 points

Grep .doc and .docx

Hi all,

I was wondering if there was a command-line utility that would allow me to grep a .doc/.docx/xls...etc... file for specific words.

Thanks!

PowerMac G5, Mac OS X (10.5.7)

Posted on Jan 13, 2010 8:08 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 13, 2010 8:24 PM in response to tmcmurtr

for *.docx files, you can try the following.

unzip -p <filename> | grep <pattern>

The downside is, depending on the document, the line endings may be infrequent.

I like

unzip -p /Users/andya/Library/Mail\ Downloads/ETC\ Feb2010\ Bib.docx | less

the search for your strings, which are highlighted.

Message was edited by: Nils C. Anderson

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Answer 2

tmcmurtr Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 14, 2010 9:42 AM in response to Nils C. Anderson

I was aware of the ability to unzip the xml formatted documents, thank you for the suggestion. To clairify, what I am more looking for is possibly even a 3rd party utility that will allow me to search for keywords in a document without having to convert the documents themselves.

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Answer 3

Jan 14, 2010 2:54 PM in response to tmcmurtr

Oh, sorry.

I sifted around and found something called xml_grep. I'm not sure if that is what you looking for
Here's a link that may be useful

http://thebogles.com/blog/2009/08/xml_grep-cookbook/

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