How do i open an e-mail attachment from WINDOWS

Question

heres my question
Someone approached me in church today,they know i have a Macbook
They recieved an e-mail with an attachment from someone else
they went to open the attachment,Right away Microsoft Office opened and told them their TRIAL had expired.
I recommmended they look in Spotlight and also under system preferences in the blue apple
What he needs in something In the Macbook Already that will open the attachment so he can read it.
Will the trial version of I-Work do it?
he is looking or something quick that will work
thanks

Answer 1

CoffeehouseSchmuck,
The attachment is evidently a Word file, and the person in question evidently just clicked on the attachment in the email message. When you do this, Mail will attempt to have the associated application open the attachment.
The first problem is that only a trial version of Word is present, and the second is that the person in question is simply clicking on the attachment. First, get the attachment to the Desktop by dragging it there (or using the "Save Attachment.." button in Mail).
Once the attachment is on the Desktop, select it, then press Apple-I to open a Getinfo window for it. Use the "Open With.." pull-down to change the default application to open this type of document, then click the "Change All" button.
Text Edit will open Word documents, but the formatting might be funky. However, this should be sufficient for simply reading attachments. An iWork trial version of Pages will be able to handle it with all formatting in place, but this will only work until the trial expires.
Ideally, the person in question should acquire either MS Office or the free NeoOffice.
Scott