import fnmatch, os, pythoncom, sys, win32com.client wordapp = win32com.client.gencache.EnsureDispatch("Word.Application") try: for path, dirs, files in os.walk(sys.argv[1]): for doc in [os.path.abspath(os.path.join(path, filename)) for filename in files if fnmatch.fnmatch(filename, '*.doc')]: print "processing %s" % doc wordapp.Documents.Open(doc) docastxt = doc.rstrip('doc') + 'txt' wordapp.ActiveDocument.SaveAs(docastxt, FileFormat=win32com.client.constants.wdFormatTextLineBreaks) wordapp.ActiveWindow.Close() finally: wordapp.Quit()