In the end it seems to require too much work, and the files are too big. A hand-coded HTML file is almost one third the size of a Word HTML file, even after you run a Microsoft utility to remove extraneous comments and code from the file. This is the first edition, and no doubt there are mistakes. The book covers Word as it is supposed to work. Software doesn't always do what the manual says it should do.
Word is no exception.
One of the best computer books I've come across, Word 97 Annoyances, one of a series from O'Reilly, tells you what doesn't work in Word 97 and what features to avoid. Some of the features you're told to avoid are encouraged in Word 2000 in a Nutshell, and the author of W2KN even recommends the Word 97 Annoyances book.