Hi Mark,

The documents may be damaged.  Turn on the 'confirm conversion
on open' choice in Tools=>Options=>General and then open the
files from disk using File=>Open to see what format it thinks
they are.    You may need to use the recover file feature in
File=>Open on a copy of the file.

Word 2002 and 2003 use the same .DOC file format.

========
I was just emailed a couple of Word documents that I can't open. When I try,
it brings up the conversion dialog and displays a bunch of garbage.

I'm seeing some xml links in the document, so I'm assuming these are Word
2003 documents saved in the new XML format. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear
as though Word XP (2002) knows how to open these. I ran Office Update to
make sure I wasn't missing a new converter. It says I have all updates
installed (I'm at SP3).

Anyone have any suggestions, Other than "tell the person to save the
documents in XP format?"

Thanks!!  >>