It’s the kind of thing you don’t think about most of the time unless you really have no friends. But sometimes there comes a need to convert lots of Microsoft Word documents into text files so that other programs can read them without jumping through circus hoops or just plain giving up.

The first thing that goes through your mind is “this should be easy”. After all, Word offers a “save as” function and one of the options on the drop down is text file.

And if it weren’t for a gaggle of programmers who thought they were being helpful, that would be true.

Instead, you’re faced with that seemingly innocent “Are you sure” question. Which is OK the first couple of times but really starts to grate on the fifth or tenth time. You start to question why no-one thought to add in the option that says “Yes, and I’m sure for the rest of this session, stop asking me”. Of course, your answer may be less polite, which is acceptable so long as no-one else is in earshot.

Then your thoughts turn to using a macro. You’ve heard about them. They’re supposed to make repetitive tasks such as converting a folder full of Word files into txt documents much the same as the proverbial walk in the park.

And maybe that’s true if you’re a computer geek with no life that doesn’t involve staring at a computer screen.

A macro will work – you just have to persuade it that this is the case.

Another way is to use a specialist program to convert Word to txt using drag and drop simplicity. Click here to find out more.