I doubt that you're going to find what you want. Microsoft has published a
compatibility pack that works with Word 2000 through Word 2003. It doesn't
go back to Word 97. For details, see:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43
-c6bb74cd1466&DisplayLang=en

Hi Karl,

Probably not going to be a viewer that meets this criteria (work on Windows versions earlier than Windows 2000) from Microsoft.
Windows 2000 is the oldest announced Windows version for new Microsoft products/items.

The 2007 Word files are XML (named Office Open) so it's possible that a 3rd party product could open them, including
http://openoffice.org with a converter.  These, I suspect, will be more common overtime, and each version will have some oddities to
overcome with time (Google Docs, for example apparently saves in the older Star/OpenOffice .SWX word processing format, but named
their files .ODF (OpenOffice 2.0)

The MS Office-Open XML file formats (not to be confused with the Oasis Open-Office [ODF] file format <g>) are .zip files, so it
would be possible to open those and pull the text content from them on your own, but it would be a bit of work.
=================
Can anyone direct me to a source for a file viewer that would allow one to view the new default, non-doc format MS Word 2007 files
in the Word (and Office) that is due to be released at the end of November? I assume the doc file format is backward compatible with
Word 97, which I have, but am not sure; if not compatible, then such a viewer would also need to be able to view Word 2007 doc
files.

I don't need to be able to write files in this file format, just read inbound e-mail attachments in the new format that might be
sent to me. Such a viewer would need to work with Windows 98.
Any assistance would be appreciated--thanks. >>

Note: I did not test the following because I have installed the
Office2007 compatibility pack on top of Office2003.

Microsoft has released an Office2007 compatibility pack for Office 2000,
2002 and 2003:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43
-c6bb74cd1466&DisplayLang=en
It will probably not work on your Office 97.
Instead, you need the Word 2003 viewer
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=95e24c87-8732-48d5-8689
-ab826e7b8fdf&DisplayLang=en
and install the compatibility pack on top of this viewer.
Quote from the compatibility pack's webpage:
"By installing the Compatibility Pack in addition to Microsoft Office
2000, Office XP, or Office 2003, you will be able open, edit, and save
files using the file formats new to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007.
The Compatibility Pack can also be used in conjunction with the
Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer 2003, and PowerPoint
Viewer 2003 to view files saved in these new formats."

Maybe this won't work as MS does no longer support Win98, but you may
give it a try.

Best regards

--
email me: change "nospam" to "w.hennings"
Wilfried Hennings c./o.
Forschungszentrum (Research Center) Juelich GmbH, MUT
<http://www.fz-juelich.de/mut/mut_home>
All opinions mentioned are strictly my own, not my employer's.