I just tested OpenOffice, and it works fine with large descriptions - I just tested 500 chars, and it comes in fine.
It's totally Free, reads and writes Excel and Word docs without much trouble, and it's GPL'd, just like OSC, so you know it's good! It's cross platform (Linux/Windows/Mac), and multi-language as well.
www.openoffice.org
Check it out.
OUTSTANDING!
Tim, many thanks!
The sunman will throw some sunshine your way!