Actually, it did work, and the imported text was hidden between all the gibrish lines. I now have a working solution.  Thank you @Tom @Reeza @Ksharp @Patrickfor all the help Attached is the final code for anyones reference:   ***************** * Get file list * *****************; libname output "C:\Users\Home\Desktop\SAS"; %let wordPath=C:\Users\Home\Desktop\Word\; * &wordPath contains all Word forms *; %let rtfPath=C:\Users\Home\Desktop\rtf\; %let fileType=.doc; * Or .docx *; filename files pipe "dir ""&wordPath*&fileType"""; data fileList; infile files lrecl=300 truncover; input line $200.; retain fileID; if not index(line,"&fileType") then delete; else fileID+1; fileName = strip(substr(line,39,199)); wordPathname="&wordPath"||left(fileName); rtfPathname="&rtfPath"||left(tranwrd(compress(fileName,,p), "&fileType", ".txt")); keep fileID fileName wordPathname rtfPathname; run; * Convert Word to RTF files * *****************************; options noxwait noxsync; x call "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\winword.exe"; data _null_; wait=sleep(3); run; fileName wordLink dde 'WinWord|System'; %macro word2rtf(inPathname,outPathname); data _null_; file wordLink; put '[FileOpen.Name = "' &inPathname '"]'; put '[FileSaveAs "' &outPathname '",6]'; put '[FileClose]'; run; %mend word2rtf; data _null_; set fileList; call execute(cats('%nrstr(%word2rtf)(' ,quote(trim(wordPathname)) ,',' ,quote(trim(rtfPathname)) ,')' )); run; data _null_; file wordLink; put '[FileExit]'; run; fileName wordLink clear; *************** * Read in data from RTF files * *******************************; %macro rtf2sas(rtfFile,fileName,surveyNum); fileName inRTF "&rtfFile"; data questions; infile inRTF lrecl=5000 truncover; input rawTxt $ 1-5000; run; data q_and_a; set questions; run; data survey_&surveyNum; length Survey $ 50; set questions; Survey="&fileName"; run; %mend rtf2sas; data _null_; set fileList; call execute('%rtf2sas('||rtfPathname||','||fileName||','|| fileID||')'); run; **************************** * Set all surveys together * ****************************; data output.Survey_All; set survey_:; run; Having said that, I know understand why it would be better to use a VBA code first to import the word files to csv and then import csv to SAS and process the data, it is much slower when using SAS ... View more

Sorry, found the solulsion :       data NewSet;    set OldSet;    Old= Code;    do i= 1 to (countw(Old));       New = scan(Old, i,',');       output;    end;    drop i Old Code; run;     ... View more