Shell script that converts an old-style *.doc Microsoft Word document into a modern *.docx MS Word document using the DocumentAlchemy document conversion API.

doc2docx.sh

#!/bin/bash
# Converts one or more *.doc files into *.docx

# USAGE: doc2docx <DOC_FILE>
#        doc2docx <DIRECTORY>/*.doc
# Errors are reported, but do not stop further processing.
# Exits with `0` if the given files were converted correctly,
# or with the number of failing files.

# This is your DocumentAlchemy API key.  It may be set via the
# environment variable named `DA_API_KEY`.
# (See <https://documentalchemy.com/> to get one of your own.)
API_KEY=${DA_API_KEY:-"403l1zh3dkbakyb9"}

# This is a flag that can prevent this script from `echo`ing
# unnecessary information.  It can be set via the environment
# variable `QUIET`.
# A clever person could make this into a command line parameter
# like `-q`.
QUIET=${QUIET:-FALSE}

# Note that you can set environment variables on a per-invocation
# basis by prefixing NAME=VALUE before the command.  For example:
#   API_KEY=my-key QUIET=true doc2docx *.doc

# EXIT_CODE tracks the number of input documents we couldn't convert.
EXIT_CODE=0

# Loop over the command line parameters....
for doc in "$@"; do
  # ...testing that is is an accessible file...
  if ! [ -s "$doc" ]; then
    $QUIET || echo "WARNING: File '$doc' was not found and will be ignored."
    EXIT_CODE=$((EXIT_CODE+1))
  else
    # ...and that the filename ends with `.doc`...
    docx="`echo "$doc" | sed 's/\.doc$/\.docx/'`"
    if [[ "$doc" == "$docx" ]]; then
      $QUIET || echo "WARNING File '$doc' does not end in '.doc' and will be ignored."
      EXIT_CODE=$((EXIT_CODE+1))
    else
      # ...if so, POST to DocumentAlchemy to convert the file...
      $QUIET || echo "Converting '$doc' into '`basename "$docx"`'...";
      response=$(curl --silent \
                      --write-out %{http_code} -H "Authorization: da.key=$API_KEY" \
                      -X POST --form "document=@$doc" \
                      https://documentalchemy.com/api/v1/document/-/rendition/docx \
                      -o "$docx")
      # ...and report success or failure.
      if ! [ "$response" -eq "200" ]; then
        $QUIET || echo "WARNING: Expected a 200 response for file '$doc', found $response instead.";
        EXIT_CODE=$((EXIT_CODE+1))
      else
        $QUIET || echo "...OK. File '$docx' created."
      fi
    fi
  fi
done

# Exit with the number of documents that could not be converted.
exit $EXIT_CODE