This is a big problem with using MSWord - especially 2003.
Perhaps you could find a friend with an MS Word version that would read your files so you could resave them (awful to consider with "thousands" of files).  

The advice to be sure your RTF file association is set to come up with WordPad (and NOT Word) is good.  

You may have named your files  .DOC instead of .RTF
If so, try renaming them to .RTF and be sure .RTF files are read with WordPad association.

There is free software that can rename large groups of files all at once, such as Virtualzone's "FileRenamer"                 

If something finally works - please let us all know what it was.

Good luck.   --AnnaSummers

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Cheeta Gauba 
To: [log in to unmask] 
Sent: Saturday, September 24, 2005 8:54 PM
Subject: Re: [PCSOFT] Help with WordPad/Word tangle badly needed


Hi Carol,
On the Wordpad document problem, as Gene points out, the Word "Viewer" does
not alter any file at all and so using it in the past to view your files
should not have caused any problem. I suspect the problem may just be in
the file association set up in your Windows XP.  I assume your Wordpad
files are all RTF files; do check the file association for RTF files - and
try changing it especially if when you look you find the association is set
to MS-Word! In Windows Explorer, click "Tools" then "Folder Options". In
the "Folder Options" go to the "File Types" tab and then scroll down until
you find RTF (or whatever extension your Wordpad files end with).

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