With regard to the MS 'Word97' reader that was once widely touted - my Win 98 system now refuses to read most "MS-Doc" files - I am looking for a compatible reader, preferably one that will allow me to save a format stripped or disabled version of the text in at least plain ASCII or even RTF. I do have OOO, and it seems to be able to handle things, but I have a need for the fastest loadable reader - many attempts to convert things to a text file destroy the files.

I also have some weird HTML files (picked off the web) in which EACH character is followed by a NULL character!!! Bloody Hell! JiK - any ideas how to convert these, and what the hell produced them?! :-)