We just started doing a project in .net that requires us to output MS OFfice files (and possibly crystal reports). Naturally being on a linux board I'm opposed to using proprietary file formats and was wondering if Open Office has equivelant libraries (preferably in .net) that can also export to .doc format. Portability isn't important for this project but I do hate locking myself in to MS products and I was curious on what the state of play was for the alternatives. I tried checking the open office website but there seems to be a hall of alot of information there when You don't know what your really looking for!

You may be looking for the SDK. You can download it here:
Downloads

You may also want to look at the license:
License

I was thinking of something more like this:

Dim doc As Word.Document = New Word.Document        doc.Content.Text = "sample text"        doc.SaveAs("e:/downloads/")

As far as I can tell, and I've spent many hours looking and even a few trying to make one myself, OpenOffice has nothing similar.

If you know of anything I'd love to hear about. On a side note, it's amazing just how much functionality OOO has behind the scenes, I always thought Word was alot better in that regard.