ms-word reading from PHP on linux O.S

[Srinivasa Rao D <srinivas.lamp@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,
      * How better, i can  read ms-word doc files  from PHP on LINUX OS*.On
searching I got *catdoc* softaware.By using this i can read word doc data as
a text.

function catdoc_file($fname)
{

    $ret = exec('catdoc -ab '.escapeshellarg($fname) .' 2>&1');

    if (preg_match('/^sh: line 1: catdoc/i',$ret)) {
        return false;
    }

    return trim($ret);
}
It is working well.

  *Is there are any other softwares that can fetch text from MS-WORD file?.*