extracting strings from Word files

[chaz_mac]

Using Word 2003 sp3
Excel 2003 sp3

Creating an Excel spread sheet as an index to Word documents.

first column is a hyperlink to the document, no problem getting this.

in later columns i wish to interrogate the document for subject, sent to, and date, just to fill those in.

i tried searching the binary word document file, but there are multiple repeats of phrases such as "Subject :" in random places that prevent a succesful logical search for string values that are essentially random.

In the word document as it appears in Word, the date is stored in the header, in a fixed location (last data item). the body always looks like:

To : Fan Noise Participants
File

From : Me

Subject : Outdoor Fan Testing at San Diego

there cam be multiple To: lines, i just want the first one, the subect (possibly multi-line, but a single phrase with one period).

is there a way from Excel macro land to get this information from Word, instead of having to open the Word document and copy-paste it in? because i always manage to do something wrong at least once when i do these things.

Thanks -

Chaz