This kind of stuff both scares and enrages me. The worst part is that it is not surprising in any way.

I'm looking for a library/component to convert from MSWord-> anything else. I thought I had found it. Nope:

Please Note: This product automates MS Word or Excel to convert the files. Therefore MS Word or Excel will be required. The user is encouraged to make sure Word or Excel is properly licensed on the PC.

Geez, that's easy; I don't need to pay for something to do that. I'm looking for a way to perform the conversion that (a) doesn't require Word to be loaded on the machine and (b) doesn't require the overhead of launching Word to convert a document.

Testing. (Trying to play nicely with others. Thanks to Will Cox for the tip.)