As Julie and Lindsay have said, OpenOffice will open all your Word documents. It will save in Word format as well, but there may be problems if you use macros. You can download OO from http://www.openoffice.org/ It is put out by Sun - you may have seen the ads when you updated Java. I am running Linux, where OO is the standard office suite. It includes a spreadsheet, a database and a generator for presentations like PowerPoint. The last will open PowerPoint files, but its own format won't open in anything. Doug. Lindsay Graham wrote: > Julie has made a good suggestion, Marg -- OpenOffice gets better all the > time. > > But if you want to stick with Word, I suggest you subscribe to one (or > more) of the microsoft.public newsgroups. They have some very helpful > and knowledgeable people on them, and I've several times got very prompt > and useful help on one of these newsgroups. But be careful, there are > also a few ratbags who are simply a waste of space <g>. > > Lindsay Graham, Canberra > > Julie wrote: >> marg at rickarby wrote: >> >>> Having struggled through Vista and all my Digger and Aus vital index >>> programs not working, and taking months of fixes to get them going, now >>> WORD has disappeared for the third time in 6 months. >>> >>> On previous occasion the only way to fix it is to phone Microsoft >>> support (a nice lady in Malaysia) and have her re-do everything - four >>> hours sitting on the end of the phone while she took over the computer >>> - I am wondering if anyone has a similar experience and is there some >>> other program than Word, that might be better etc. >>> >>> And is there some kind of list to join to deal with it? >>> >>> Grateful for any help >>> >>> >>> Marg >>> Port Stephens NSW >>> >>> >> Marg, >> >> It must be something that is peculiar to your system. I have had Vista, >> Digger and AVRI and Word 2003 all working happily together for a couple >> of years. I have now upgraded my operating system to Windows 7 and >> everything is still working well. (What version of Word are you using?) >> >> You do have the option to download Open Office. This will open all of >> the documents that you already have saved with Word. This is a free >> suite of Office programs that all work very well. >> >> http://www.openoffice.org/ >> >> >> Julie >> >>