Office Mac - help reading PC files

Hi

I've been a Mac user for a few months and now need all my old PC documents which are on disc. I've recently bought Office for Mac (2011) and have not been able to many of my documents.

I've got a mixture of .docx, .doc, .xlsx, .xls files, but most won't open (whether I double click on the file from the disc direct or try to open from Word/Excel). My documents were created in XP versions of office - or on Windows 7.

I'm getting a mix of error messages e.g.
- "Uses a file type that is blocked from opening in this version"
- "Word cannot open. The document may be in use, might not be a valid Word document or contain invalid characters".

(A couple of files have opened, but I can't see why they would and others wouldn't and annoyingly, they're the files I don't need)!

I've downloaded XML Converter - but it's not making any difference.

Help please!!

I'd suggest that the files are damaged in some way.

Office for Mac can open all versions of Windows based office documents.

Office for Mac doesn't fully support vba scripting but that won't stop you opening the file.

Are you certain:
a) these are definitely office documents (not weird and wonderful email attachments masquerading as Office docs)
b) these open on a similarly equipt Windows PC?

Thanks mrplow - I was worried that may be the response....

a) definitely office documents (I created them on windows xp/7 office progs) and there are hundreds of them.
b) they opened on my last pc - (which crashed - I then sent away to a PC specialist who could open, use and transferred all files to this disc)

But some files will open....?

Any way to repair if they are damaged?

Some may open because they aren't damaged.

If the docs have come from a source of unknown integrity - e.g. hard disk failed etc - then all bets are off I'm sorry to say.
Some may work, some may not. If it's just the text you're after you may get some mileage from opening them in a text editor such as Text Wrangler

It's horse-has-already-bolted stuff but this is why it's essential to keep backups of files that cannot be easily replaced.

Going forward, for documents, Dropbox is an easy, free, automated solution. If you have an external disk then Time Machine offers a good backup solution too. Not that that helps too much with your existing issue I'm afraid

Lesson already learned - everything (now) backed up.

I could cry that the disk was not and not usable!

Thanks for your help.