DON'T TRY TO OPEN EVERY FILE IN WORD

When someone asks you to open a .pdf file or a picture file saved on your hard drive, how do you open it? I have had several colleague that will instantly open Microsoft Word or Word Perfect and then try to open the file. Often, they cannot find the file because they only see the word files, which has led many to believe the file has been deleted. If they do switch it to show all files, then it will usually ask them to decode the file and print out a bunch of gibberish.

Don't use Word to open all of your files. You can use the program that handles the specific file type (an image viewer for pictures, adobe reader for .pdf files, etc.). Or, as I prefer, just use the file explorer and open the file directly. Your computer will figure out what program it needs to use to open the file.