If you're on Win and have Word installed you can use Win32::OLE as Corion indicated above.

Below is a working example

#!perl -w

use strict;

use Win32::OLE;
use Win32::OLE::Const;
use Win32::OLE::Variant;

## Start Word engine
my $Word = Win32::OLE->new('Word.Application', 'Quit');
$Word->{'DisplayAlerts'} = 0;
my $wdc = Win32::OLE::Const->Load("Microsoft Word");

my $tpl = "c:\\perltest\\pages.doc"; ## Subject to change

## Open template
my $doc = $Word->Documents->Open($tpl, {ReadOnly =>  Variant(VT_BOOL, 
+1) } ) || die"add";

my $pages = $Word->ActiveDocument->BuiltInDocumentProperties( $wdc->{w
+dPropertyPages} )->Value;

$doc->Close( { SaveChanges => $wdc->{wdDoNotSaveChanges} } );

print " $tpl contains $pages pages\n";
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