A simple question re: OpenOffice

We've just got new computer but haven't got Word and Excel on it. GF used these regularly on old computer and is considering paying silly money for MS Office. Basically what I want to know is will OpenOffice open documents created with Word and Excel, and will documents created with OpenOffice be openable (is that a word?) with Word/Excel?

Cheers B)

Yes, and yes, if they've been saved as a .doc (OOo defaults to saving as its own proprietary format -- figure that one out).