When the document didn't open in OO-writer i uploaded into google docs
and saved it first as an openoffice .odt file and second as a .doc
file. I could read both then in OO-writer but the formatting was
changed in an irritating way - lines with narrow margins and double
spacing.

I just renamed the file which was on the
desktop to .doc and that worked in OO-writer without any annoying
formatting. I should have tried that but thought it was more
complicated than that.

I haven't used Word for almost five years now and thought from a post
i recall a couple of years back that the latest Word version had
dropped .doc and i thought .dot was the new extension. Hence the post.