Free-standing polypyrrole films have been stretched or cold rolled to produce uniaxially and biaxially textured films. The oriented films show an increase in conductivity up to 3 x when compared to unprocessed films, due to polymer chain alignment. Highly anisotropic active stress and strain are observed for the textured films, with up to 7x larger active strains transverse to the orientation direction. This anisotropy results in a 100% increase in active stress and 70% increase in active strain when compared to unprocessed films, and active strains over 10% (when cycled at 0.1 V/s) have been achieved with this method. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.