I have an old MS Word document from c.1997 that I would like to convert/render correctly. OpenOffice will open the document, but accented characters do not render. It appears correct otherwise. I would like to get it to render with those characters, and convert to a format that (hopefully) won't deteriorate like this in the future. Formatting in the document is important. Maintaining the ability to edit the document moving forward is desirable, but secondary to preserving this document.

I no longer run Windows, and I'm not sure if I have a copy of Microsoft Office available any more; I'm currently running Fedora 13.
I consider the document sensitive, so any solution that requires uploading or sharing the document is not acceptable.

I'm thinking there may be a way to determine the font(s) used, and a matching available font, and then do a mass search-and-replace operation of some sort on the document? Or something? And what format should I convert it to for the future?