External hard drive documents not read on a MacBook Pro

Hi all,
I use my external hard drive to save a document from another  PC computer last week when I plugged it  back on my Mac the documents cannot be  read on a Mac as it says they are not supports by apps software or search for application that will open those files.
I have all the documents which I copy from my previous Toshiba Laptop which was windows7 but is there way to clean the external drive on Mac without loosing all the document? or how do I format my external hard disk on MacBook Pro?
Jok2

You can copy these documents to the internal drive of your MacBook Pro and then, format the external drive. If you want to use the external drive on Macs and PCs, I recommend you to format your external drive on a PC to use exFAT, better than NTFS or FAT32. You can also use FAT32 but it isn't compatible with files bigger than 4 GB, and NTFS disks can't be written on Macs. If you want to use this external drive only with your Mac, you can use Disk Utility to format the external drive using "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)". Read > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU1.html
Depending on the application you used to create the documents on the PC, you have to install an application that reads these documents. For example, if you created these documents with Office, you can use Office for Mac, iWork or LibreOffice. Each one has got its advantages and disadvantages

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