If you know what you want your word doc to look like, set it up in Word, or
whatever will save a formatted rtf file (Sorry, I'm Windows/Mac based, but I
presume that Open Office etc will do this on Linux).
I'm not sure if I got you, but RTF as very different from native word format. RTF doesn't allow you to place images or other floating objects.
I don't know if tables and borders are possible. Tabulatur sometimes
can't fit your needs.
I insert placeholders into the document where I want to put dynamic data I
use %_varname_% to avoid any RTF conflicts.
this idea really sounds great. a faster way can't hardly be found.
/dorgon