I don't have a machine with Word on it handy to test, but I've had good luck with the following code to have the browser download the output of the CGI instead of just showing it. 
#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use CGI;

my $cgi = CGI->new;
my $dir = '/path/to/file';
my $file = 'file.doc';

open(FILE, "$dir/$file") or die "Error opening file $file: $!";
print $cgi->header(
    -type => 'application/octet-stream',
    -attachment => $file,
);

while(<FILE>) {
    print;
}

close(FILE);

[download]

In reply to Re: Forcing a Word Document to Download by Mr_Person
in thread Forcing a Word Document to Download by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.