Lyx, which is an OSX implementation of TeX, will export to (among other things) .doc , .rft and open office xml standards. You do need to be a unix type to get it working correctly, mind you, as some of the add-ons are not even distributed as binaries, and the GUI leaves a thing or three to be desired, but the logical arrangement of the documents it produces is interesting.

I think if I were starting a thesis again I might use it. But these days all the people I work with want to see straightforward Word files.