Configuration

Ubuntu running in VirtualBox image, running from a shared folder on the windows host
Texlive installed from TUG (NOT the apt-get one)
See the caveats section below
ImageMagick is needed for the PDF->PNG conversion
ALL(!) images are exported at 300 dpi, in this way we can uniformly reduce them to 96 dpi and return to the original dimensions. All images coming from matplotlib should be explicitly dimensioned!

To execute

If desired, run the make_fig.py script to generate the figures again
At the command prompt on the ubuntu guest, do::

xelatex -shell-escape test.tex
xelatex -shell-escape test.tex
mk4ht oolatex test.tex

Run the python script image_resizer.py which will resize the images in the ODT document (paths are hard coded for now) from 300 DPI to 96 dpi.
Open the test_smaller.odt file in LibreOffice and save as Microsoft Word format
See also: http://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/2641/convert-to-command-line-parameter/

Caveats

TexLive pgfsys

There is a bug in the TexLive 2014 installation on ubuntu, see this thread: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/185349/error-using-pgfsysdriver-with-tex4ht-only-shows-up-with-texlive-2014-ok-with-t

Basically, do the substitution::

\def\pgfsys@svg@newline{\Hnewline} --> \def\pgfsys@svg@newline{{?nl}}

in the file /usr/local/texlive/2014/texmf-dist/tex/generic/pgf/systemlayer

Miktex pgfsys

There is the same bug on windows in Mixtex 2.9 as well, open the file C:\Users\USER\AppData\Roaming\MiKTeX\2.9\tex\generic\pgf\systemlayer and make the same substitution::

\def\pgfsys@svg@newline{\Hnewline} --> \def\pgfsys@svg@newline{{?nl}}

http://sourceforge.net/p/miktex/bugs/2350/

Miktex "Illegal storage address"

See http://sourceforge.net/p/miktex/bugs/2350/::

tex4ht.c (2012-07-25-19:36 Windows MiKTeX)
tex4ht mtest
  -i/tex4ht/ht-fonts/
  -cunihtf
  -ewin32/tex4ht.env
(D:/MiKTeX2.9/tex4ht/base/win32/tex4ht.env)
(D:/MiKTeX2.9/fonts/tfm/public/cm/cmr10.tfm)
(D:/MiKTeX2.9/tex4ht/ht-fonts/alias/lm/lm-rep-cmrm/cmr.htf)
Searching `lm-rep-cmrm.htf' for `cmr10.htf'
(D:/MiKTeX2.9/tex4ht/ht-fonts/unicode/lm/lm-rep-cmrm.htf)
--- error --- Illegal storage address

Now move (or copy) the file ..\MiKTeX2.9\tex4ht\ht-fonts\unicode\charset\unicode.4hf one folder up to ..\MiKTeX2.9\tex4ht\ht-fonts\unicode\unicode.4hf or one folder down to ..\MiKTeX2.9\tex4ht\ht-fonts\unicode\charset\uni\unicode.4hf

Miktex xtpipes problem

In the file C:\Users\USER\AppData\Roaming\MiKTeX\2.9\tex4ht\base\win32, in the block that reads::

<ooxtpipes>
.4oo move %%0.4oo %%0.tmp
.4oo java -classpath c:/texlive/2010/texmf-dist/tex4ht/bin/tex4ht.jar xtpipes -i c:/texlive/2010/texmf-dist/tex4ht/xtpipes/ -o %%0.4oo %%0.tmp
.4om move %%1.4om %%1.tmp
.4om java -classpath c:/texlive/2010/texmf-dist/tex4ht/bin/tex4ht.jar xtpipes -i c:/texlive/2010/texmf-dist/tex4ht/xtpipes/ -o %%1.4om %%1.tmp
</ooxtpipes>

Change the paths to the correct paths, mine looks something like this with Miktex::

<ooxtpipes>
.4oo move %%0.4oo %%0.tmp
.4oo java -classpath C:/Users/ihb/AppData/Roaming/MiKTeX/2.9/tex4ht/bin/tex4ht.jar xtpipes -i C:/Users/ihb/AppData/Roaming/MiKTeX/2.9/tex4ht/xtpipes/ -o %%0.4oo %%0.tmp
.4om move %%1.4om %%1.tmp
.4om java -classpath C:/Users/ihb/AppData/Roaming/MiKTeX/2.9/tex4ht/bin/tex4ht.jar xtpipes -i C:/Users/ihb/AppData/Roaming/MiKTeX/2.9/tex4ht/xtpipes/ -o %%1.4om %%1.tmp
</ooxtpipes>