Web conversion of doc files and e-reserves generally

[spober at manhattan.edu]

Some faculty have been sending me their web reserve items in MS Word
format, which means there is a quick conversion utility built in to
change it to HTML.  But using this has resulted in a couple of
peculiarities.  For example, the original doucment has three column
tables (Date, Topic, Readings) with a row for each date entry, but the
HTML renders the entire document as having just two rows: one Table
Heading row for the titles and one very long row for all the rest of the
information.  Word relies on font sizing to align the data correctly,
which is problematic because it also chooses odd fonts for links.  So I
end up manually coding the tables, which is rather more time-consuming
than I would like. 

So - does anyone know of another word processor or program that will do
a better conversion job on multi-row tables?  Or on doc files generally?

Also, we would like to expand some of our e-reserves and I'm trying to
train a new staff person to do some of the scanning and page creation. 
Any tips on training or just on e-reserves generally would be
appreciated.  

TIA,
Stacy Pober, Information Alchemist
Manhattan College Libraries
spober at manhattan.edu