"Simon Parkes" simon.parkes@ukonline.co.uk writes:

You rcould try the Koffice suite, I've just downloaded the Kword and Ksheet had a quick look and they look pretty good. The beauty is that they both read M$ format docs..

Oh, I forgot this. I usually read Word docs through antiword and Excel via xls2csv, although having the apps around which can read/edit them better is also handy sometimes.