Is there any way to view word documents within Safari on the Mac?

One solution is to use Google docs — unless you hate Google :)

  1. Install the NinjaKit extension so that Safari will be able to use GreaseMonley scripts
  2. Install the Google Docs Viewer script from userscripts.org
  3. Now Safari will show a small icon next to Office documents that redirects to Google for online viewing

Incidentally, NinjaKit is a great extension and there are plenty useful scripts on userscripts.org