oss to convert word docs   (link)

http://wvware.sourceforge.net/
wv is a library which allows access to Microsoft Word files. It can load and parse Word 2000, 97, 95 and 6 file formats. (These are the file formats known internally as Word 9, 8, 7 and 6.) There is some support for reading earlier formats as well: Word 2 docs are converted to plaintext.