antiword is a free MS Word reader for Linux and RISC OS.
antiword converts the binary files from Word 2, 6, 7, 97, 2000, 
2002 and 2003 to plain text and to PostScript TM .

The homepage of antiword is found at http://www.winfield.demon.nl/

antiword does not seem to depend on other packages.
No incompatibilites are known so far. No special configuration 
is needed after installing the package.