wv is a library which allows access to Microsoft Word files. It can load and parse the word 2000, 97, 95 and 6 file formats. These are the file formats known internally as Word 9, 8, 7 and 6. Work is underway to support reading earlier formats as well: Word 2 docs are converted to plaintext. Included in wv are various helper applications to convert Word documents in HTML, PDF, LaTeX, and other useful formats.
WWW: http://wvware.sourceforge.net/