I need a free scipt that can read the text from a .doc file without COM

I have found this function but it's not working on every doc.
sometimes $thisline contains one question marks(�) after each character.
I think it has something to do with the charset.I have tried to convert the string to utf-8 or other formats but it doesnt work. pls help
function parseWord($userDoc) {
$fileHandle = fopen($userDoc, "r");
$line = @fread($fileHandle, filesize($userDoc));

$lines = explode(chr(0x0D),$line); $outtext = "";

foreach($lines as $thisline)
{


$pos = strpos($thisline, chr(0x00));
//var_dump($thisline);
if (($pos !== FALSE)||(strlen($thisline)==0)) { }
else {
$outtext .= $thisline." \n";
}
}
$outtext = preg_replace("/[^a-zA-Z0-9\s\,\.\-\n\r\t@\/\_\(\)]/","",$outtext);
return '<pre>'.$outtext.'</pre>';

}