I need to parse word tables in .doc format. Need some help with regex.

I get a dump of the table and the number of columns (first row is header) with:

use strict;
use warnings;

require Text::Extract::Word;
Text::Extract::Word->import( qw(get_all_text) );

my $InputFileReadable ='Fish.doc';
my $content = get_all_text($InputFileReadable);

#detecting structure
my ($header, $body)= split /(\a)\1+/, $content;
my $NrColumns = () = $header =~ /\a/g;
$NrColumns++;
print $NrColumns;
[download]

Now I need to parse $content. I now that columns are separated by \a (BEL) and end of rows by \a\a. Simply splitting $content everytime I match \a\a is not enough, since if a column is empty I will have \a\a also as non end-of-row delimiter. So, I need to keep track that \a\a is matching only at $NrColumns positions.

Agreement(BEL)ACAP(BEL)ACAP(BEL)Accord(BEL)(BEL)albatross(BEL)(BEL)(BE
+L)albatros(BEL)(BEL)alleged violation(BEL)(BEL)(BEL)infraction présum
+ée(BEL)(BEL)allowable(BEL)(BEL)(BEL)admissible(BEL)(BEL)anchovy(BEL)(
+BEL)(BEL)anchois(BEL)(BEL)angler fish, burbot(BEL)(BEL)(BEL)lotte(BEL
+)(BEL)
[download]

With $NrColumns = 4 I should get:

Agreement(BEL)ACAP(BEL)ACAP(BEL)Accord(BEL)(BEL)
albatross(BEL)(BEL)(BEL)albatros(BEL)(BEL)
alleged violation(BEL)(BEL)(BEL)infraction présumée(BEL)(BEL)
allowable(BEL)(BEL)(BEL)admissible(BEL)(BEL)
anchovy(BEL)(BEL)(BEL)anchois(BEL)(BEL)
angler fish, burbot(BEL)(BEL)(BEL)lotte(BEL)(BEL)
[download]

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