Setting the file properties on MS word docuemnts or other 'Structured Storage' documents seems to be a task that several folks have been needing to do, but have not found a clean way to get it done. I found a COM object on the MS support site called dsofile that will access the properties. So using the WIN32::OLE we get a Perl interface to Structured Storage.

#################################
#
# SetTitleProp.pl
#
# A quick and dirty script to set the 'title' property of a Structured
+ Storage file.
# The files can be either on an NTFS partition, or could be MS Office 
+documents on
# NTFS or FAT.
#
# To use it you must have installed the dsofile utility from the micro
+soft site. Currently the
# link to it is:
#  
#    http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q224351
# 
# But if the url is invalid then search for dsofile.exe, or knowledge 
+article 22435.
#
# 
##################################
use strict;
use Win32::OLE;
use File::Spec;


my $PropertyReader = Win32::OLE->new('DSOleFile.PropertyReader', 'Quit
+');

my $directory = "g:\\fileproptest";


opendir(DNAME, $directory) || die "Unable to open the requested direct
+ory: $directory\n"; 

while( my $filename = readdir( DNAME ) )  {
    
    next if ($filename eq '.' or $filename eq '..');

    my $fullfilename = File::Spec->catdir($directory,$filename);
    
    my $properties = $PropertyReader->GetDocumentProperties($fullfilen
+ame)
        || die("Unable read file properties for '$fullfilename' ", Win
+32::OLE->LastError());

    if ( !$properties->{title}  || length($properties->{title}) == 0)
    {
        print "File '$filename' --- Title not set setting to '$filenam
+e'\n"; 

        $properties->SetProperty('title', $filename);                

    } else {
        print "File '$filename' --- Title property is set to '" .  $pr
+operties->{title} ."'\n"; 
        
    }

} 

closedir(DNAME);

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In reply to SetFileProperties by mlutze

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