Converting LaTeX to Word format? Better yet, with equation-editor format equations?

Here is a solution for Ubuntu: HOWTO convert LaTeX to OpenOffice .odt and MS Word .doc

This page is the place to start: http://www.tug.org/utilities/texconv/textopc.html This page is also helpful (if rather techie): http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/%7Egurari/TeX4ht/mn.html

Basically, I used tex4ht, which is (as far as I can see) clearly the best way to do the conversion.

However, getting the tex4ht installation set up correctly can be a royal pain, so here's how it worked for me.

Step 1. Install tex4ht from the Ubuntu repositories.

Step 2. Install the upgrade from here:
http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/%7Egurari/TeX4ht/mn-upgrade.html
This is not a simple procedure. You need to follow every single step exactly, and it takes a little while, especially if you are approaching it in a gingerly and careful way, as I was - not really understanding what I was doing! But the instructions are very clear and accurate, and do work. The conversion to OpenOffice won't work without this upgrade.

There are various other steps that may be necessary depending on what is in your LaTeX file. If, like me, you are using biblatex, you will need to install Eitan Gurari's bug fixes from here:
http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~gurari/TeX4ht/bugfixes.html
I also needed to (re)install an up-to-date version of csquotes from here:
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/csquotes/
For some reason, it seemed to be the case that I needed to install dvipng from the repositories (though I don't really understand why).

At that point, things should be ready. Run the following from the command line as user (not root).

Step 3. latex filename.tex (it may prompt you to do this more than once)

Step 4. bibtex filename.aux

Step 5. mk4ht oolatex filename.tex (again, possibly you may need to do this more than once)

At this point, there will be various files in the directory that contained your original .tex file, but among them should be an .odt (OpenOffice Writer) file, which hopefully contains some decent approximation to what you had in LaTeX.